Suetonius: DE VITIS CAESARUM

[1] Gentem Octaviam Velitris praecipuam olim fuisse multa declarant. Nam et vicus celeberrima parte oppidi iam pridem Octavius vocabatur et ostendebatur ara Octavio consecrata, qui bello dux finitimo, cum forte Marti rem divinam faceret, nuntiata repente hostis incursione semicruda exta rapta foco prosecuit atque ita proelium ingressus victor redit. Decretum etiam publicum exstabat, quo cavebatur, ut in posterum quoque simili modo exta Marti redderentur reliquiaeque ad Octavios referrentur.

[1] Many things declare that the Octavian clan was once preeminent at Velitrae. For both a quarter in the most celebrated part of the town had long since been called “Octavius,” and there was shown an altar consecrated to Octavius, who, a leader in a neighboring war, when by chance he was performing a divine rite to Mars, upon the sudden announcement of an enemy incursion, snatched the half‑raw entrails from the hearth, hastily cut them, and so, entering the battle, returned victor. There also existed a public decree, which provided that thereafter as well the exta be rendered to Mars in like fashion, and that the remains be carried back to the Octavii.

[2] Ea gens a Tarquinio Prisco rege inter minores gentis adlecta in senatum, mox a Servio Tullio in patricias traducta, procedente tempore ad plebem se contulit, ac rursus magno intervallo per Divum Iulium in patriciatum redit. Primus ex hac magistratum populi suffragio cepit C. Rufus. Is quaestorius Cn. et C. procreavit, a quibus duplex Octaviorum familia defluxit conditione diversa.

[2] That clan was adlected by King Tarquinius Priscus into the Senate among the lesser gentes, soon translated by Servius Tullius into the patricians; as time advanced it betook itself to the plebs, and again, after a great interval, through the Divine Julius it returned to the patriciate. The first from this house to take a magistracy by the people’s suffrage was C. Rufus. He, of quaestorian rank, begot Cn. and C., from whom the Octavian family flowed into a double line of diverse condition.

Siquidem Gnaeus et deinceps ab eo reliqui omnes functi sunt honoribus summis. At Gaius eiusque posteri, seu fortuna seu voluntate, in equestri ordine constiterunt usque ad Augusti patrem. Proavus Augusti secundo Punico bello stipendia in Sicilia tribunus militum fecit Aemilio Papo imperatore.

Indeed, Gnaeus and, thereafter from him, all the rest in succession held the highest honors. But Gaius and his descendants, whether by fortune or by will, stood in the equestrian order down to the father of Augustus. The great-grandfather of Augustus, in the Second Punic War, did service in Sicily as military tribune under the commander Aemilius Papus.

Avus municipalibus magisteriis contentus abundante patrimonio tranquillissime senuit. Sed haec alii; ipse Augustus nihil amplius quam equestri familia ortum se scribit vetere ac locuplete, et in qua primus senator pater suus fuerit. M. Antonius libertinum ei proavum exprobrat, restionem e pago Thurino, avum argentarium.

His grandfather, content with municipal magistracies, with an abundant patrimony, passed his old age most tranquilly. But these things others relate; Augustus himself writes nothing more than that he sprang from an equestrian family, ancient and opulent, and that in it his father was the first to be a senator. M. Antonius reproaches him with a great-grandfather a freedman, a rope-maker from the Thurian pagus, and a grandfather a money-changer.

Nec quicquam ultra de paternis Augusti maioribus repperi.

Nor did I find anything further about Augustus’s paternal ancestors.

[3] C. Octavius pater a principio aetatis et re et existimatione magna fuit, ut equidem mirer hunc quoque a nonnullis argentarium atque etiam inter divisores operasque compestris proditum; amplis enim innutritus opibus, honores et adeptus est facile et egregie administravit. Ex praetura Macedoniam sortitus, fugitivos, residuam Spartaci et Catilinae manum, Thurinum agrum tenentis, in itinere delevit, negotio sibi in senatu extra ordinem dato. Provinciae praefuit non minore iustitia quam fortitudine; namque Bessis ac Thracibus magno proelio fusis, ita socios tractavit, ut epistolae M. Ciceronis exstent quibus Quintum fratrem eodem tempore parum secunda fama proconsulatum Asiae administrantem, hortatur et monet, imitetur in promerendis sociis vicinum suum Octavium.

[3] Gaius Octavius, the father, from the beginning of his life was great both in fact and in reputation—so that I, for my part, marvel that he too has been put out by some as a banker, and even as among the divisores and the work-crews of the Campus; for, nurtured in ample wealth, he both obtained honors easily and administered them excellently. After the praetorship he drew Macedonia by lot; on the journey he destroyed the fugitives—the remaining band of Spartacus and Catiline—who were holding the Thurian district, the task having been assigned to him in the senate outside the regular order. He governed the province with no less justice than fortitude; for, after the Bessi and the Thracians had been routed in a great battle, he so treated the allies that letters of Marcus Cicero exist in which he exhorts and admonishes his brother Quintus—who at the same time was administering the proconsulship of Asia with a reputation none too favorable—to imitate his neighbor Octavius in earning the goodwill of the allies.

[4] Decedens Macedonia, prius quam profiteri se candidatum consulatus posset, mortem obiit repentinam, superstitibus liberis Octavia maiore, quam ex Ancharia, et Octavia minore item Augusto, quos ex Atia tulerat. Atia M. Atio Balbo et Iulia, sorore C. Caesaris, genita est. Balbus, paterna stirpe Aricinus, multis in familia senatoriis imaginibus, a matre Magnum Pompeium artissimo contingebat gradu, functusque honore praeturae inter vigintiviros agrum Campanum plebi Iulia lege divisit.

[4] As he was departing from Macedonia, before he could declare himself a candidate for the consulship, he met a sudden death, his children surviving: Octavia the elder, whom he had by Ancharia, and Octavia the younger, likewise Augustus, whom he had had by Atia. Atia was born of M. Atius Balbus and Julia, the sister of Gaius Caesar. Balbus, by his paternal stock an Aricinan, with many senatorial images in the family, on his mother’s side was connected to Magnus Pompeius in a most close degree, and, having held the honor of the praetorship, as one of the vigintiviri he distributed the Campanian land to the plebs by the Julian law.

Verum idem Antonius, despiciens etiam maternam Augusti originem, proavum eius Afri generis fuisse et modo unguentariam tabernam modo pistrinum Ariciae exercuisse obicit. Cassius quidem Parmensis quadam epistola non tantum ut pistoris, sed etiam ut nummulari nepotem sic taxat Augustum: "Materna tibi farinast ex crudissimo Ariciae pistrino: hanc finxit manibus collybo decoloratis Nerulonensis mensarius."

But that same Antony, despising even Augustus’s maternal origin, flings it in his teeth that his great‑grandfather was of African stock and ran now a perfumery shop, now a bakery at Aricia. Cassius of Parma, indeed, in a certain letter thus rates Augustus as the grandson not only of a baker but also of a money‑changer: “Your maternal meal is from the crudest bakery of Aricia: this was kneaded by a money‑changer of Nerulum with hands discolored by coin‑exchange.”

[5] Natus est Augustus M. Tullio Cicerone C. Antonio conss. XIIII. Kal.

[5] Augustus was born in the consulship of Marcus Tullius Cicero and Gaius Antonius, on the 14th day before the Kalends.

Octob., paulo ante solis exortum, regione Palati, ad Capita Bubulo, ubi nunc sacrarium habet, aliquanto post quam excessit constitutum. Nam ut senatus actis continetur, cum C. Laetorius, adulscens patricii generis, in deprecanda graviore adulterii poena praeter aetatem atque natales hoc quoque patribus conscriptis allegaret, esse possessorem ac velut aedituum soli, quod primum Divus Augustus nascens attigisset, peteretque donari quasi proprio suo ac peculiari deo, decretum est ut ea pars domus consecraretur.

Oct., a little before sunrise, in the region of the Palatine, at the Capita Bubulo, where he now has a shrine, established somewhat after he departed. For, as is contained in the acts of the senate, when C. Laetorius, a youth of patrician stock, in deprecating a heavier penalty for adultery, besides his age and birth alleged this also to the enrolled fathers: that he was the possessor and, as it were, the sacristan of the soil which the Deified Augustus first touched when being born, and requested that it be granted as to his own proper and peculiar god, it was decreed that that part of the house be consecrated.

[6] Nutrimentorum eius ostenditur adhuc locus in avito suburbano iuxta Velitras permodicus et cellae penuariae instar, tenetque vicinitatem opinio tamquam et natus ibi sit. Huc introire nisi necessario et caste religio est, concepta opinione veteri, quasi temere adeuntibus horror quidam et metus obiciatur, sed et mox confirmata. Nam cum possessor villae novus seu forte seu temptandi causa cubitum se eo contulisset, evenit ut post paucissimas noctis horas exturbatus inde subita vi et incerta paene semianimis cum strato simul ante fores inveniretur.

[6] The place of his nursing is still pointed out in an ancestral suburban holding near Velitrae, very small and in the likeness of a pantry-cell, and the neighborhood keeps the opinion as though he was born there too. To enter here, unless of necessity and chastely, is a matter of religious scruple, a belief conceived of old—that to those approaching it rashly a certain horror and fear are set in their way—and soon confirmed. For when the new possessor of the villa, either by chance or for the purpose of making a trial, had betaken himself thither to bed, it came to pass that, after very few hours of the night, driven out from there by a sudden and uncertain force, he was found almost half-alive, together with his bedding, before the doors.

[7] Infanti cognomen Thurino inditum est, in memoriam maiorum originis, vel quod regione Thurina recens eo nato pater Octavius adversus fugitivos rem prospere gesserat. Thurinum cognominatum satis certa probatione tradiderim, nactus puerilem imagunculam eius aeream veterem, ferreis et paene iam exolescentibus litteris hoc nomine inscriptam, quae dono a me principi data inter cubiculi Lares colitur. Sed et a M. Antonio in epistolis per contumeliam saepe Thurinus appellatur, et ipse nihil amplius quam mirari se rescribit, pro obprobio sibi prius nomen obici.

[7] To the infant the cognomen Thurinus was given, in memory of the ancestors’ origin, or because in the Thurine region, when he had been newly born, his father Octavius had conducted affairs successfully against fugitives. I would maintain with sufficiently certain proof that he was surnamed Thurinus, having obtained an old little bronze effigy of him as a boy, inscribed with this name in iron letters now almost fading, which, given by me as a gift to the princeps, is cherished among the bedchamber Lares. But also by M. Antonius in his letters he is often called “Thurinus” by way of contumely, and he himself writes back nothing more than that he marvels that a name formerly his should be cast at him as a reproach.

Postea Gai Caesaris et deinde Augusti cognomen assumpsit, alterum testamento maioris avunculi, alterum Munati Planci sententia, cum, quibusdam censentibus Romulum appellari oportere quasi et ipsum conditorem urbis, praevaluisset, ut Augustus potius vocaretur, non tantum novo sed etiam ampliore cognomine, quod loca quoque religiosa et in quibus augurato quid consecratur augusta dicantur, ab auctu vel ab avium gestu gustuve, sicut etiam Ennius docet scribens:

Afterwards he assumed the cognomen of Gaius Caesar, and then of Augustus, the former by the testament of his great-uncle, the latter by the judgment of Munatius Plancus, when—although some were opining that he ought to be called Romulus, as if he too were the founder of the city—it had prevailed that he be called rather Augustus, not only with a new but also with a more ample cognomen, because sacred places also, and those in which, with augury taken, something is consecrated, are called augusta, from increase (auctus) or from the gesture or the tasting of birds, as even Ennius teaches, writing:

Augusto augurio postquam incluta condita Roma est.

After illustrious Rome was founded by august augury.

[8] Quadrimus patrem amisit. Duodecimum annum agens aviam Iuliam defunctam pro contione laudavit. Quadriennio post virili toga sumpta, militaribus donis triumpho Caesaris Africano donatus est, quanquam expers belli propter aetatem.

[8] At four years old he lost his father. While in his twelfth year he delivered a laudation of his grandmother Julia, deceased, before the assembly. Four years later, after assuming the virile toga, he was awarded military gifts at Caesar’s African triumph, although without a share in war on account of his age.

Profectum mox avunculum in Hispanias adversus Cn. Pompei liberos, vixdum firmus a gravi valitudine, per infestas hostibus vias paucissimis comitibus naufragio etiam facto subsecutus, magno opere demeruit, approbata cito etiam morum indole super itineris industriam. Caesare post receptas Hispanias expeditionem in Dacos et inde in Parthos destinante, praemissus Apolloniam studiis vacavit. Utque primum occisum eum heredemque se comperit, diu cunctatus an proximas legiones imploraret, id quidem consilium ut praeceps inmaturumque omisit, ceterum urbe repetita hereditatem adiit, dubitante matre, vitrico vero Marcio Philippo consulari multum dissuadente.

Soon, when his uncle set out into the Spains against the children of Cn. Pompeius, he, scarcely yet firm from a grave ill‑health, followed with very few companions through roads infested by enemies, even after a shipwreck had occurred, and he very greatly earned favor, his disposition of morals also quickly approved over and above the industry of the journey. After Caesar, once the Spains had been recovered, was planning an expedition against the Dacians and then against the Parthians, he, sent on ahead to Apollonia, devoted himself to studies. And as soon as he discovered that Caesar had been slain and that he himself was heir, he long hesitated whether to implore the nearest legions; that plan, as headlong and immature, he indeed set aside; however, having returned to the city he entered upon the inheritance, his mother hesitating, while his stepfather Marcius Philippus, a consular, strongly dissuaded.

Atque ab eo tempore exercitibus comparatis primum cum M. Antonio M.que Lepido deinde tantum cum Antonio per duodecim fere annos, novissime per quattuor et quadraginta solus rem publicam tenuit.

And from that time, with armies assembled, he held the Republic: first with M. Antony and M. Lepidus, then only with Antony for almost 12 years, and finally alone for 44.

[9] Proposita vitae eius velut summa, partes singillatim neque per tempora sed per species exsequar, quo distinctius demonstrari cognoscique possint. Bella civilia quinque gessit: Mutinense, Philippense, Perusinum, Siculum, Actiacum; e quibus primum ac novissimum adversus M. Antonium, secundum adversus Brutum et Cassium, tertium adversus L. Antonium triumviri fratrem, quartum adversus Sextum Pompeium Cn. f.

[9] With, as it were, the summary of his life set forth, I will pursue the parts singly, not by times but by kinds, so that they may be shown and known more distinctly. He waged five civil wars: the Mutinensian, the Philippensian, the Perusine, the Sicilian, the Actian; of these the first and the most recent were against M. Antony, the second against Brutus and Cassius, the third against L. Antony, the brother of the triumvir, the fourth against Sextus Pompeius, son of Cn.

[10] Omnium bellorum initium et causam hinc sumpsit: nihil convenientius ducens quam necem avunculi vindicare tuerique acta, confestim ut Apollonia rediit, Brutum Cassiumque et vi necopinantis et (quia provisum periculum subterfugerat) legibus adgredi reosque caedis absentis deferre statuit. Ludos autem victoriae Caesaris, non audentibus facere quibus optigerat id munus, ipse edidit. Et quo constantius cetera quoque exsequeretur, in locum tr. pl. forte demortui candidatum se ostendit, quanquam patricius necdum senator.

[10] From here he took the beginning and cause of all the wars: deeming nothing more congruent than to avenge his uncle’s murder and to defend his enactments, immediately on returning from Apollonia he resolved to attack Brutus and Cassius both by force, taking them unawares, and (because they had evaded the danger that had been foreseen) by the laws, and to lay an indictment for the murder against them in their absence. Moreover, the Games of Caesar’s Victory, since those on whom that duty had fallen did not dare to present them, he himself produced. And that he might the more steadfastly execute the rest as well, he put himself forward as a candidate in place of a tribune of the people who had chanced to die, although a patrician and not yet a senator.

Sed adversante conatibus suis M. Antonio consule, quem vel praecipuum adiutorem speraverat, ac ne publicum quidem et tralaticium ius ulla in re sibi sine pactione gravissimae mercedis impertiente, ad optimates se contulit, quibus eum invisum sentiebat, maxime quod D. Brutum obsessum Mutinae provincia a Caesare data et per senatum confirmata expellere armis niteretur. Hortantibus itaque nonullis percussores ei subornavit, ac fraude deprehensa periculum in vicem metuens veteranos simul in suum ac rei publicae auxilium quanta potuit largitione contraxit; iussusque comparato exercituii pro praetore praeesse et cum Hirtio ac Pansa, qui consulatum susceperant, D. Bruto opem ferre, demandatum bellum tertio mense confecit duobus proeliis. Priore Antonius fugisse eum scribit ac sine paludamento equoque post biduum demum apparuisse, sequenti satis constat non modo ducis, sed etiam militis functum munere atque in media dimicatione, aquilifero legionis suae graviter saucio, aquilam umeris subisse diuque portasse.

But with M. Antonius the consul opposing his attempts—whom he had hoped as a foremost adiutor—and as he did not impart to him even the public and traditional right in any matter without a compact for a most grievous fee, he betook himself to the Optimates, among whom he perceived him to be odious, especially because he was striving by arms to expel D. Brutus, besieged at Mutina, from the provincia given by Caesar and confirmed through the senate. Accordingly, at the urging of some, he suborned assassins against him; and the fraud being detected, fearing danger in turn, he drew together veterans, at once for his own and for the republic’s aid, by as much largess as he could; and, having been ordered to preside over the assembled army pro praetore and, together with Hirtius and Pansa, who had undertaken the consulship, to bring help to D. Brutus, he finished the entrusted war in the third month with two battles. In the former, Antonius writes that he fled, and that, without his paludamentum and his horse, he did not appear again until after two days; in the latter it is sufficiently agreed that he discharged the office not only of a leader but even of a soldier, and, in the midst of the fight, when the aquilifer of his legion was grievously wounded, he took the eagle upon his shoulders and carried it for a long time.

[11] Hoc bello cum Hirtius in acie, Pansa paulo post ex vulnere perissent, rumor increbruit ambos opera eius occisos, ut Antonio fugato, re publica consulibus orbata, solus victores exercitus occuparet. Pansae quidem adeo suspecta mors fuit, ut Glyco medicus custoditus sit, quasi venenum vulneri indidisset. Adicit his Aquilius Niger, alterum e consulibus Hirtium in pugnae tumultu ab ipso interemptum.

[11] In this war, since Hirtius perished in the battle line, and Pansa a little later from his wound, a rumor spread that both had been killed by his agency, so that, with Antony put to flight and the commonwealth bereft of consuls, he alone might seize the victorious armies. Pansa’s death in fact was so suspect that the physician Glyco was kept under guard, as if he had inserted poison into the wound. To these Aquilius Niger adds that the other of the consuls, Hirtius, was slain by him himself amid the turmoil of the fight.

[12] Sed ut cognovit Antonium post fugam a M. Lepido receptum ceterosque duces et exercitus consentire pro patribus, causam optimatium sine cunctatione deseruit, ad praetextum mutatae voluntatis dicta factaque quorundam calumniatus, quasi alii se puerum, alii ornandum tolendumque iactassent, ne aut sibi aut veteranis par gratia referretur. Et quo magis paenitentiam prioris sectae approbaret, Nursinos grandi pecunia et quam pendere nequirent multatos extorres oppido egit, quod Mutinensi acie interemptorum civium tumulo publice extructo ascripserant, pro libertate eos occubuisse.

[12] But when he learned that Antony, after his flight, had been received by M. Lepidus, and that the other commanders and the armies were consenting on behalf of the Fathers, he deserted the cause of the optimates without hesitation, calumniating the sayings and doings of certain men as a pretext for his changed will, as if some had been bandying about that he was a boy, others that he must be adorned and then removed, lest equal favor be returned either to himself or to the veterans. And in order the more to approve his repentance of his former sect, he drove the Nursini into exile from their town, fined with a great sum of money—and one which they were unable to pay—because on the public tomb erected over the citizens slain in the Mutina battle-line they had inscribed that they had fallen for liberty.

[13] Inita cum Antonio et Lepido societate, Philippense quoque bellum, quamquam invalidus atque aeger, duplici proelio transegit, quorum priore castris exutus vix ad Antoni cornu fuga evaserat. Nec successum victoriae moderatus est, sed capite Bruti Romam misso, ut statuae Caesaris subiceretur, in splendidissimum quemque captivum non sine verborum contumelia saeviit; ut quidem uni suppliciter sepulturam precanti respondisse dicitur, iam istam volucrum fore potestatem; alios, patrem et filium, pro vita rogantis sortiri vel micare iussisse, ut alterutri concederetur, ac spectasse utrumque morientem, cum patre, quia se optulerat, occiso filius quoque voluntariam occubuisset necem. Quare ceteri, in his M. Favionius ille Catonis aemulus, cum catenati producerentur, imperatore Antonio honorifice salutato, hunc foedissimo convitio coram prosciderunt.

[13] Having entered into a partnership with Antony and Lepidus, he also brought the Philippian war to a close, although weak and sick, in two engagements, in the first of which, stripped of his camp, he had barely escaped by flight to Antony’s wing. Nor did he moderate himself in his victory, but, the head of Brutus having been sent to Rome to be placed beneath Caesar’s statue, he raged against each of the most splendid captives, not without verbal contumely; indeed, he is said to have answered one man who was suppliantly begging for burial that now that power would belong to the birds; others—a father and son—begging for their life, he ordered to cast lots or to play micare, so that it might be granted to one or the other; and he watched both dying, since when the father, because he had offered himself, was killed, the son too met a voluntary death. Therefore the rest, among them that M. Favonius, the emulator of Cato, when they were led out in chains, after saluting the imperator Antony with honor, tore into this man to his face with the foulest reviling.

Partitis post victoriam officiis, cum Antonius Orientem ordinandum, ipse veteranos in Italiam reducendos et municipalibus agris conlocandos recepisset, neque veteranorum neque possessorum gratiam tenuit, alteris pelli se, alteris non pro spe meritorum tractari querentibus.

With the duties divided after the victory, when Antony had taken on the organization of the East, and he himself had undertaken to lead the veterans back to Italy and settle them on municipal lands, he held the favor neither of the veterans nor of the landowners, the former complaining that they were being expelled, the latter that they were not being treated in proportion to the expectation of their merits.

[14] Quo tempore L. Antonium fiducia consulatus, quem gerebat, ac fraternae potentiae res novas molientem confugere Perusiam coegit et ad deditionem fame compulit, non tamen sine magnis suis et ante bellum et in bello discriminibus. Nam cum spectaculo ludorum gregarium militem in quattuordecim ordinibus sedentem excitari per apparitorem iussisset, rumore ab obtrectatoribus dilato quasi eundem mox et discruciatum necasset, minimum afuit, quin periret concursu et indignatione turbae militaris. Saluti fuit, quod qui desiderabatur repente comparuit incolumnis ac sine iniuria.

[14] At that time he forced Lucius Antonius, relying on the consulship which he was holding and on his brother’s potency, as he was contriving innovations, to take refuge in Perusia and compelled him to surrender by hunger—yet not without great dangers to himself both before the war and in the war. For when, at a spectacle of games, he had ordered an apparitor to rouse a rank-and-file soldier sitting in the fourteen rows, a rumor, spread by detractors as though he had soon after tortured and killed that same man, made it come within a very little of his perishing through the rush and indignation of the military crowd. His salvation was that the man who was being sought suddenly appeared safe and without injury.

Circa Perusinum autem murum sacrificans paene interceptus est a manu gladiatorum, quae oppido eruperat.

However, while sacrificing near the Perusian wall, he was nearly intercepted by a band of gladiators, which had burst out from the town.

[15] Perusia capta in plurimos animadvertit, orare veniam vel excusare se conantibus una voce occurrens, moriendum esse. Scribunt quidam, trecentos ex dediticiis electos, utriusque ordinis ad aram Divo Iulio extructam Idibus Martiis hostiarum more mactatos. Extiterunt qui traderent, conpecto eum ad arma isse, ut occulti adversarii et quos metus magis quam voluntas contineret, facultate L. Antoni ducis praebita, detegerentur devictisque iis et confiscatis, promissa veteranis praemia perolverentur.

[15] Perusia having been captured, he took action against very many, meeting those who were begging pardon or trying to excuse themselves with the single reply, that one must die. Some write that three hundred chosen from the surrendered, of both orders, were slaughtered in the manner of sacrificial victims at an altar erected to Divine Julius on the Ides of March. There were those who handed down that he went to arms by compact, in order that hidden adversaries, and those whom fear rather than willingness restrained, the opportunity having been supplied by L. Antonius as leader, might be uncovered; and when these had been vanquished and their goods confiscated, the rewards promised to the veterans might be paid in full.

[16] Siculum bellum incohavit in primis, sed diu traxit intermissum saepius, modo reparandarum classium causa, quas tempestatibus duplici naufragio et quidem per aestatem amiserat, modo pace facta, flagitante populo ob interclusos commeatus famemque ingravescentem; donec navibus ex integro fabricatis ac viginti servorum milibus manumissis et ad remum datis, portum Iulium apud Baias, inmisso in Lucrinum et Avernum lacum mari, effecit. In quo cum hieme tota copias exercuisset, Pompeium inter Mylas et Naulochum superavit sub horam pugnae tam arto repente somno divinctus, ut ad dandum signum ab amicis excitaretur. Unde praebitam Antonio materiam putem exprobrandi, ne rectis quidem oculis eum aspicere potuisse instructam aciem, verum supinum, caelum intuentem, stupidum cubuisse, nec prius surrexisse ac militibus in conspectum venisse quam a M. Agrippa fugatae sint hostium naves.

[16] He initiated the Sicilian war first of all, but dragged it out for a long time, often intermitted—now for the sake of repairing the fleets, which he had lost to tempests by a double shipwreck, and indeed in summer; now with a peace concluded, the people clamoring for it on account of supply-lines being cut off and the famine growing worse—until, ships having been fabricated afresh and twenty thousand slaves manumitted and given to the oar, he made the Julian harbor near Baiae, the sea having been let into Lake Lucrinus and Avernus. In this, after he had exercised his forces for the whole winter, he defeated Pompeius between Mylae and Naulochus, being bound at the hour of battle by so tight and sudden a sleep that he had to be roused by friends to give the signal. Whence I think matter was furnished to Antony for reproaching him, that he had not been able to look straight at the arrayed battle line with his eyes, but had lain on his back, gazing at the sky, in a stupor, and had not risen and come into the sight of the soldiers before the ships of the enemy had been put to flight by M. Agrippa.

Alii dictum factumque eius criminantur, quasi classibus tempestate perditis exclamaverit, etiam invito Neptuno victoriam se adepturum, ac die circensium proximo sollemni pompae simulacrum dei detraxerit. Nec temere plura ac maiora pericula ullo alio bello adiit. Traiecto in Siciliam exercitu , cum partem reliquam copiarum continenti repeteret, oppressus ex improviso a Demochare et Appollophane praefectis Pompei, uno demum navigio aegerrime effugit.

Others incriminate his word and deed, as if, when the fleets had been destroyed by a tempest, he cried out that, even with Neptune unwilling, he would obtain victory, and on the next day of the circus-games he removed the simulacrum of the god from the solemn procession. Nor in any other war did he encounter more and greater dangers. The army having been ferried across into Sicily , when he was again seeking the remaining part of his forces on the mainland, he was surprised by Demochares and Apollophanes, prefects of Pompey, and only with the greatest difficulty escaped in a single ship.

Iterum cum praeter Locros Regium pedibus iret et prospectis biremibus Pompeianis terram legentibus, suas ratus, descendisset ad litus, paene exceptus est. Tunc etiam per devios tramites refugientem servus Aemili Pauli comitis eius, dolens proscriptum olim ab eo patrem Paulum et quasi occasione ultionis oblata, interficere conatus est. Post Pompei fugam collegarum alterum M. Lepidum, quem ex Africa in auxilium evocarat, superbientem viginti legionum fiducia summasque sibi partes terrore et minis vindicantem spoliavit exercitu supplicemque concessa vita Circeios in perpetuum relegavit.

Again, as he was going on foot past Locri to Rhegium and, having caught sight of Pompeian biremes coasting along the land, thinking them his own, had gone down to the shore, he was almost taken. Then too, as he was fleeing by devious bypaths, the slave of Aemilius Paulus, his companion, resenting that his father Paulus had once been proscribed by him, and as if an opportunity for vengeance had been offered, tried to kill him. After Pompey’s flight, the other of his colleagues, M. Lepidus—whom he had summoned from Africa to his aid—swelling with confidence in twenty legions and vindicating to himself the highest prerogatives by terror and threats, he stripped of his army, and, his life granted, relegated as a suppliant to Circeii in perpetuity.

[17]M. Antonii societatem semper dubiam et incertam reconciliationibusque variis male focilatam abrupit tandem, et quo magis degenerasse eum a civili more approbaret, testamentum, quod is Romae, etiam de Cleopatra liberis inter heredes nuncupatis, reliquerat, aperiundum recitandumque pro contione curavit. Remisit tamen hosti iudicato necessitudines amicosque omnes, atque inter alios C. Sosium et Cn. Domitium tunc adhuc consules. Bononiensibus quoque publice, quod in Antoniorum clientela antiquitus erant, gratiam fecit coniurandi cum tota Italia pro partibus suis.

[17] He at length broke off Mark Antony’s association, always doubtful and uncertain and ill‑stoked by various reconciliations; and, the better to prove that he had degenerated from civic custom, he took care that the will which he had left at Rome—where even Cleopatra’s children were named among the heirs—be opened and read before the public assembly. Nevertheless, though adjudged a public enemy, he sent back to him all his kin and friends, among them Gaius Sosius and Gnaeus Domitius, then still consuls. He also publicly granted to the Bononienses, because from of old they were in the Antonii’s clientele, the favor of taking the oath in confederation with all Italy on behalf of his cause.

Nec multo post navali proelio apud Actium vicit, in serum dimicatione protacta, ut in nave victor pernoctaverit. Ab Actio cum Samum in hiberna se recepisset, turbatus nuntiis de seditione praemia et missionem poscentium, quos ex omni numero confecta victoria Brundisium praemiserat, repetita Italia, tempestate in traiectu bis conflictatus (primo inter promuntoria Peloponnesi atque Aetoliae, rursus circa montes Ceraunios, utrubique parte liburnicarum demersa, simul eius, in qua vehebatur, fusis armamentis et gubernaculo diffracto) nec amplius quam septem et viginti dies, donec desideria militum ordinarentur, Brundisii commoratus, Asiae Syriaeque circuitu Aegyptum petit obsessaque Alexandrea, quo Antonius cum Cleopatra confugerat, brevi potitus est. Et Antonium quidem, seras conditiones pacis temptantem, ad mortem adegit viditque mortuum.

Not long after he won a naval battle at Actium, the engagement having been prolonged into the late hours, such that, as victor, he spent the night on the ship. From Actium, when he had withdrawn to Samos for winter quarters, disturbed by reports of a mutiny among those demanding rewards and discharge, whom from the whole force, victory concluded, he had sent ahead to Brundisium, on returning to Italy he was twice assailed by storm during the crossing (first between the headlands of the Peloponnese and Aetolia, again around the Ceraunian mountains, in both places a part of the Liburnians being sunk, and at the same time the rigging of the ship in which he was conveyed being scattered and the rudder shattered) and he stayed at Brundisium not more than twenty-seven days, until the soldiers’ demands were set in order; then, by a circuit through Asia and Syria, he made for Egypt and, with Alexandria besieged—whither Antony had fled with Cleopatra—he quickly became master of it. And Antony indeed, attempting belated terms of peace, he drove to death and saw him dead.

Cleopatrae, quam servatam triumpho magno opere cupiebat, etiam Psyllos admovit, qui venenum ac virus exugerent, quod perisse morsu aspidis putabatur. Ambobus communem sepulturae honorem tribuit ac tumulum ab ipsis incohatum perfici iussit. Antonium iuvenem, maiorem de duobus Fulvia genitis, simulacro Divi Iuli, ad quod post multas et irritas preces confugerat, abreptum interemit.

Cleopatra, whom he very earnestly desired to preserve for his triumph, he even brought the Psylli to, that they might suck out the poison and the virus, since she was thought to have perished by the bite of an asp. To both he granted the common honor of sepulture and ordered the tomb, begun by themselves, to be completed. The young Antony, the elder of the two begotten by Fulvia, he slew, snatched away from the simulacrum of the Divine Julius, to which he had fled after many and vain prayers.

Item Caesarionem, quem ex Caesare Cleopatra concepisse praedicabat, retractum e fuga supplicio adfecit. Reliquos Antonii reginaeque commmunes liberos non secus ac necessitudine iunctos sibi et conservavit et mox pro conditione cuiusque sustinuit ac fovit.

Likewise he subjected to punishment Caesarion, whom Cleopatra was proclaiming to have conceived by Caesar, after he was brought back from flight. The remaining children common to Antony and the queen he both preserved as if joined to himself by kinship, and soon, according to each one’s condition, he supported and cherished.

[18] Per idem tempus conditorium et corpus Magni Alexandri, cum prolatum e penetrali subiecisset oculis, corona aurea imposita ac floribus aspersis veneratus est, consultusque, num et Ptolemaeum inspicere vellet, regem se voluisse ait videre, non mortuos. Aegyptum in provinciae formam redactam ut feraciorem habilioremque annonae urbicae redderet, fossas omnis, in quas Nilus exaestuat, oblimatas longa vetustate militari opere detersit. Quoque Actiacae victoria memoria celebratior et in posterum esset, urbem Nicopolim apud Actium condidit ludosque illic quinquennales constituit et ampliato vetere Apollinis templo locum castrorum, quibus fuerat usus, exornatum navalibus spoliis Neptuno ac Marti consecravit.

[18] At the same time he venerated the tomb and body of Alexander the Great, when he had had it brought out from the inner shrine and set before his eyes, placing a golden crown upon it and scattering it with flowers; and when asked whether he would like to inspect Ptolemy as well, he said that he had wished to see a king, not dead men. Egypt, reduced into the form of a province, he made more fertile and more serviceable to the urban grain-supply by scouring with military labor all the channels into which the Nile swells in flood, clogged with long-standing age. And in order that the memory of the Actian victory might be more celebrated and endure for the future, he founded the city Nicopolis near Actium and established five-yearly games there, and, with the old temple of Apollo enlarged, he consecrated to Neptune and Mars the site of the camp which he had used, adorned with naval spoils.

[19] Tumultus posthac et rerum novarum initia coniurationesque complures, prius quam invalescerent indicio detectas, compressit alias alio tempore: Lepidi iuvenis, deinde Varronis Murenae et Fanni Caepionis, mox M. Egnati, exin Plauti Rufi Lucique Pauli progeneri sui, ac praeter has L. Audasi, falsarum tabularum rei ac neque aetate neque corpore integri, item Asini Epicadi ex gente Parthina ibridae, ad extremum Telephi, mulieris servi nomenculatoris. Nam ne ultimae quidem sortis hominum conspiratione et periculo caruit. Audasius atque Epicadus Iuliam filiam et Agrippam nepotem ex insulis, quibus continebantur, rapere ad exercitus, Telephus quasi debita sibi fato dominatione et ipsum et senatum adgredi destinarant.

[19] Tumults thereafter, and the beginnings of revolutions, and several conspiracies—detected by information before they grew strong—he suppressed, some at one time, others at another: that of the young Lepidus; then of Varro Murena and Fannius Caepio; soon of M. Egnatius; then of Plautius Rufus and of Lucius Paulus, his son-in-law; and besides these, of L. Audasius, a defendant on a charge of forged documents and sound neither in age nor in body; likewise of Asinius Epicadus, a hybrid of the Parthian stock; and at the last of Telephus, the nomenclator, a woman’s slave. For he was not free even from the conspiracy and danger of men of the very lowest condition. Audasius and Epicadus had planned to snatch Julia his daughter and Agrippa his grandson from the islands in which they were kept and carry them off to the armies; Telephus, as though sovereignty were owed him by fate, had determined to attack both himself and the senate.

Quin etiam quondam iuxta cubiculum eius lixa quidam ex Illyrico exercitu, ianitoribus deceptis, noctu deprehensus est cultro venatorio cinctus, imposne mentis an simulata dementia, incertum; nihil enim exprimi quaestione potuit.

Nay even once, near his bedchamber, a certain camp-follower from the Illyrian army, the doorkeepers having been deceived, was apprehended at night, girt with a hunting knife—whether unsound of mind or with simulated dementia, uncertain; for nothing could be extracted by questioning.

[20] Externa bella duo omnino per se gessit, Delmaticum adulescens adhuc, et Antonio devicto Cantabricum. Delmatico etiam vulnera excepit, una acie dextrum genu lapide ictus, altera et crus et utrumque brachium ruina pontis consauciatus. Reliqua per legatos administravit, ut tamen quibusdam Pannonicis atque Germanicis aut interveniret aut non longe abesset, Ravennam vel Mediolanium vel Aquileiam usque ab urbe progrediens.

[20] He conducted in all two foreign wars on his own, the Dalmatian while still a youth, and, with Antony defeated, the Cantabrian. In the Dalmatian he also received wounds: in one battle line his right knee struck by a stone; in another he was injured in a leg and in both arms by the collapse of a bridge. The rest he administered through legates, yet in certain Pannonian and German affairs he either intervened or was not far away, advancing from the city as far as Ravenna or Milan or Aquileia.

[21] Domuit autem partim ductu partim auspiciis suis Cantabriam, Aquitaniam, Pannoniam, Delmatiam cum Illyrico omni, item Raetiam et Vindelicos ac Salassos, gentes Inalpinas. Coercuit et Dacorum incursiones, tribus eorum ducibus cum magna copia caesis, Germanosque ultra Albim fluvium summovit, ex quibus Suebos et Sigambros dedentis se traduxit in Galliam atque in proximis Rheno agris conlocavit. Alias item nationes male quietas ad obsequium redegit.

[21] Moreover, he subdued, partly by his own command and partly under his auspices, Cantabria, Aquitania, Pannonia, Dalmatia with all Illyricum, likewise Raetia and the Vindelici and the Salassi, Inner-Alpine peoples. He also restrained the incursions of the Dacians, when three of their leaders with a great multitude had been cut down, and he drove the Germans beyond the river Elbe; from among them he led the Suebi and the Sicambri, surrendering themselves, across into Gaul and settled them in the fields nearest to the Rhine. Likewise he brought other restive nations back to obedience.

Nec ulli genti sine iustis et necessariis causis bellum intulit, tantumque afuit a cupiditate quoquo modo imperium vel bellicam gloriam augendi, ut quorundam barbarorum principes in aede Martis Ultoris iurare coegerit mansuros se in fide ac pace quam peterent, a quibusdam vero novum genus obsidum, feminas, exigere temptaverit, quod neglegere marum pignora sentiebat; et tamen potestatem semper omnibus fecit, quotiens vellent, obsides recipiendi. Neque aut crebrius aut perfidiosius rebellantis graviore umquam ultus est poena, quam ut captivos sub lege venundaret, ne in vicina regione servirent neve intra tricensimum annum liberarentur. Qua virtutis moderationisque fama Indos etiam ac Scythas, auditu modo cognitos, pellexit ad amicitiam suam populique Romani ultro per legatos petendam.

Nor did he ever bring war upon any nation without just and necessary causes, and he was so far from a desire of augmenting in any way either the empire or warlike glory that he even compelled certain chiefs of the barbarians to swear in the temple of Mars the Avenger that they would remain in the loyalty and peace which they were seeking; and from some, indeed, he tried to exact a new kind of hostages—females—because he perceived that they made light of pledges of males; and yet he always granted to all the power, whenever they wished, of receiving back their hostages. Nor did he ever punish rebels either more frequently or more treacherously with a heavier penalty than this: that he sold the captives under a stipulation that they should not serve in a neighboring region and should not be set free within 30 years. By the fame of this virtue and moderation he enticed even the Indians and the Scythians, known only by hearsay, to seek unprompted through envoys friendship with himself and with the Roman people.

Parthi quoque et Armeniam vindicanti facile cesserunt et signa militaria, quae M. Crasso et M. Antonio ademerant, reposcenti reddiderunt obsidesque insuper optulerunt, denique, pluribus quondam de regno concertantibus, nonnisi ab ipso electum probaverunt.

Likewise the Parthians too easily yielded to him as he was vindicating Armenia, and to him repossessing the military standards which they had taken from M. Crassus and M. Antonius they returned them, and in addition offered hostages; finally, when several were once contending for the kingship, they approved none except the one chosen by himself.

[22] Ianum Quirinum, semel atque iterum a condita urbe ante memoriam suam clausum, in multo breviore temporis spatio terra marique pace parta ter clusit. Bis ovans ingressus est urbem, post Philippense et rursus post Siculum bellum. Curulis triumphos tris egit, Delmaticum, Actiacum, Alexandrinum, continuo triduo omnes.

[22] The Janus Quirinus, which before his own memory had been closed once and again since the founding of the city, he closed three times in a much shorter span of time, with peace obtained by land and sea. Twice he entered the city in an ovation, after the Philippian and again after the Sicilian war. He celebrated three curule triumphs—the Dalmatian, the Actian, the Alexandrian—all on three successive days.

[23] Graves ignominias cladesque duas omnino nec alibi quam in Germania accepit, Lollianam et Varianam, sed Lollianam maioris infamiae quam detrimenti, Varianam paena exitiabilem, tribus legionibus cum duce legatisque et auxiliis omnibus caesis. Hac nuntiata excubias per urbem indixit, ne quis tumultus existeret, et praesidibus provinciarum propagavit imperium, ut a peritis et assuetis socii continerentur. Vovit et magnos ludos Iovi Optimo Maximo, si res p. in meliorem statum vertisset: quod factum Cimbrico Marsicoque bello erat.

[23] He sustained grave ignominies and two disasters in all, and nowhere save in Germany: the Lollian and the Varian; but the Lollian was of greater infamy than of loss, the Varian nearly fatal, with three legions, together with their commander, the legates, and all the auxiliaries, cut down. With this reported, he proclaimed watches throughout the city, lest any tumult arise, and he prolonged the imperium of the provincial governors, so that the allies might be restrained by men experienced and accustomed. He vowed also great games to Jupiter Best and Greatest, if the Republic should turn into a better condition: which had been done in the Cimbrian and Marsian war.

Adeo denique consternatum ferunt, ut per continuos menses barba capilloque summisso caput interdum foribus illideret, vociferans: Quintili Vare, legiones redde! diemque cladis quot annis maestum habuerit ac lugubrem.

They report him to have been at last so consternated that for continuous months, with beard and hair let down, he would sometimes dash his head against the doors, crying aloud: Quintilius Varus, give back the legions! and that he kept the day of the disaster every year as mournful and lugubrious.

[24] In re militari et commutavit multa et instituit, atque etiam ad antiquum morem nonnulla revocavit. Disciplinam severissime rexit: ne legatorum quidem cuiquam, nisi gravate hibernisque demum mensibus, permisit uxorem intervisere. Equitem Romanum, quod duobus filiis adulescentibus causa detrectandi sacramenti pollices amputasset, ipsum bonaque subiecit hastae; quem tamen, quod inminere emptioni publicanos videbat, liberto suo addixit, ut relegatum in agros pro libero esse sineret.

[24] In military affairs he both altered many things and instituted others, and even recalled some to ancient custom. He governed discipline most severely: not even to any of the legates did he permit to visit his wife, except reluctantly and only in the hibernal months. A Roman equestrian, because he had amputated the thumbs of his two adolescent sons for the purpose of shirking the sacrament (the military oath), he subjected—himself and his goods—to the spear; yet, because he saw the tax-farmers (publicani) looming over the purchase, he adjudged him to his own freedman, so that, relegated to the fields, he might be allowed to be as if free.

Decimam legionem contumacius parentem cum ignominia totam dimisit, item alias immodeste missionem postulantes citra commoda emeritorum praemiorum exauctoravit. Cohortes, si quae cessissent loco, decimatas hordeo pavit. Centuriones statione deserta, itidem ut manipulares, capitali animadversione puniit, pro cetero delictorum genere variis ignominis adfecit, ut stare per totum diem iuberet ante praetorium, interdum tunicatos discinctosque, nonnumquam cum decempedis, vel etiam cespitem portantes.

He dismissed with ignominy the entire Tenth legion for contumacious disobedience, and likewise cashiered others who immodestly demanded discharge, without the benefits of veterans’ rewards. Cohorts that had yielded their position he decimated and fed on barley. Centurions who deserted their post he punished with capital punishment, just like the rank-and-file; for other kinds of offenses he subjected them to various disgraces, such as ordering them to stand for a whole day before the praetorium, sometimes in tunics and ungirded, sometimes with ten‑foot rods, or even carrying a sod of turf.

[25] Neque post bella civilia aut in contione aut per edictum ullos militum commilitones appellabat, sed milites, ac ne a filiis quidem aut privignis suis imperio praeditis aliter appellari passus est, ambitiosius id existimans, quam aut ratio militaris aut temporum quies aut sua domusque suae maiestas postularet. Libertino milite, praeterquam Romae incendiorum causa et si tumultus in graviore annona metueretur, bis usus est: semel ad praesidium coloniarum Illyricum contingentium, iterum ad tutelam ripae Rheni fluminis; eosque, servos adhuc viris feminisque pecuniosioribus indictos ac sine mora manumissos, sub priore vexillo habuit, neque aut commixtos cum ingenuis aut eodem modo armatos. Dona militaria, aliquanto facilius phaleras et torques, quicquid auro argentoque constaret, quam vallares ac murales coronas, quae honore praecellerent, dabat; has quam parcissime et sine ambitione ac saepe etiam caligatis tribuit.

[25] Nor after the civil wars did he address any of the soldiery either in assembly or by edict as “comrades-in-arms,” but as “soldiers”; and he did not allow even his sons or stepsons, endowed with imperium, to be addressed otherwise, judging that more as courting favor than what either the military rationale, or the tranquility of the times, or the majesty of himself and his house required. Freedman soldiery, except at Rome for the sake of fires and if a tumult was feared in a dearer grain-market, he used twice: once for the garrison of the colonies adjoining Illyricum, again for the protection of the bank of the river Rhine; and these—still slaves, requisitioned from wealthier men and women and manumitted without delay—he kept under a separate standard (vexillum), neither mixed with the freeborn nor armed in the same manner. Military gifts he gave rather more easily phalerae and torques—whatever consisted of gold and silver—than vallarian and mural crowns, which excelled in honor; these he bestowed as sparingly as possible and without canvassing, and often even upon the rankers (caligati).

M. Agrippam in Sicilia post navalem victoriam caeruleo vexillo donavit. Solos triumphales, quamquam et socios expeditionum et participes victoriarum suarum, numquam donis impertiendos putavit, quod ipsi quoque ius habuissent tribuendi ea quibus vellent. Nihil autem minus perfecto duci quam festinationem temeritatemque convenire arbitrabatur.

He presented M. Agrippa in Sicily, after the naval victory, with a cerulean standard. He thought that the triumphales alone—although allies of his expeditions and participants in his victories—should never be provided with gifts, because they too had the right of bestowing those things upon whom they wished. Moreover, he judged that nothing was less fitting for a perfect leader than hastiness and temerity.

Crebro itaque illa iactabat:

Therefore he frequently used to boast of those things:

Σπευδε βραδέως. Ἀσφανς γἀρ ἐστ᾽ἀμείνον ή θρασὺς στρατηλάτης.

Hasten slowly. For what is safe is better than a bold general.

Et: sat celeriter fieri quidquid fiat satis bene. Proelium quidem aut bellum suscipiendum omnino negabat, nisi cum maior emolumenti spes quam damni metus ostenderetur. Nam minima commoda non minimo sectantis discrimine similes aiebat esse aureo hamo piscantibus, cuius abrupti damnum nulla captura pensari posset.

And: whatever is done well enough should be done swiftly enough. He utterly denied that a battle or a war ought to be undertaken, unless a greater hope of emolument than a fear of loss were shown. For he said that those pursuing the smallest advantages at no small risk were like men fishing with a golden hook, the loss of which, if broken off, could be compensated by no catch.

[26] Magistratus atque honores et ante tempus et quosdam novi generis perpetuosque cepit. Consulatum vicesimo aetatis anno invasit, admotis hostiliter ad urbem legionibus, missisque qui sibi nomine exercitus deposcerent ; cum quidem cunctante senatu Cornelius centurio, princeps legationis, reiecto sagulo ostendens gladii capulum, non dubitasset in curia dicere: Hic faciet, si vos non feceritis. Secundum consulatum post novem annos, tertium anno interiecto gessit, sequentis usque ad undecimum continuavit, multisque mox, cum deferrentur, recusatis duodecim magno, id est septemdecim annorum, intervallo et rursus tertium decimum biennio post ultro petiit, ut C. et Lucium filios amplissimo praeditus magistratu suo quemque tirocinio deduceret in forum.

[26] Magistracies and honors he took both before their time and some of a new kind and perpetual. He seized the consulship in the 20th year of his age, with legions brought up in hostile fashion to the city, and with envoys sent to demand it for him in the army’s name; when, as the senate hesitated, Cornelius, a centurion, the chief of the legation, throwing back his sagum and showing the hilt of his sword, did not hesitate to say in the Curia: This will do it, if you do not. He held the second consulship after 9 years, the third with a year interposed, and he continued the following up to the 11th; and many, when they were being offered, he soon refused; after a long interval he of his own accord sought the 12th—namely, after 17 years—and again the 13th 2 years later, in order that, endowed with his own most ample magistracy, he might lead each of his sons, Gaius and Lucius, in his tyrocinium down into the Forum.

Quinque medios consulatus a sexto ad decimum annuos gessit, ceteros aut novem aut sex aut quattuor aut tribus mensibus, secundum vero paucissimis horis. Nam die Kal. Ian.

He held five intervening consulships, from the sixth to the tenth, as annual; the rest for either nine or six or four or three months, but the second indeed for very few hours. For on the day of the Kalends of January.

cum mane pro aede Capitolini Iovis paululum curuli sella praesedisset, honore abiit suffecto alio in locum suum. Nec omnes Romae, sed quartum consulatum in Asia, quintum in insula Samo, octavum et nonum Tarracone iniit.

when in the morning, before the temple of Capitoline Jupiter, he had presided for a little while on the curule chair, he departed from the honor, with another suffect appointed in his place. Nor did he enter upon all at Rome, but he entered upon the fourth consulship in Asia, the fifth on the island of Samos, the eighth and ninth at Tarraco.

[27] Triumviratum rei p. constituendae per decem annos administravit; in quo restitit quidem aliquandiu collegis ne qua fieret proscriptio, sed inceptam utroque acerbius exercuit. Namque illis in multorum saepe personam per gratiam et preces exorabilibus, solus magno opere contendit ne cui parceretur, proscripsitque etiam C. Toranium tutorem suum, eundem collegam patris sui Octavi in aedilitate. Iunius Saturninus hoc amplius tradit, cum peracta proscriptione M. Lepidus in senatu excusasset praeterita et spem clementiae in posterum fecisset, quoniam satis poenarum exactum esset, hunc a diverso professum, ita modum se proscribendi statuisse, ut omnia sibi reliquerit libera.

[27] He administered the triumvirate for constituting the republic for ten years; in which he did indeed for some time resist his colleagues that no proscription be made, but, once begun, he enforced it more bitterly than either. For since they were often, in the person of many, to be prevailed upon by favor and entreaties, he alone strove in earnest that no one be spared, and he even proscribed C. Toranius, his own guardian, the same man who had been the colleague of his father Octavius in the aedileship. Junius Saturninus relates this further: that when, the proscription having been completed, M. Lepidus in the senate had excused the past and had given hope of clemency for the future, since enough punishments had been exacted, this man, contrariwise, declared that he had set the measure of proscribing in such a way that he had left everything free to himself.

In cuius tamen pertinaciae paenitentiam postea T. Vincium Philopoemenem, quod patronum suum proscriptum celasse olim diceretur, equestri dignitate honoravit. In eadem hac potestate multiplici flagravit invidia. Nam et Pinarium equitem R. cum, contionante se admissa turba paganorum, apud milites subscribere quaedam animadvertisset, curiosum ac speculatorem ratus, coram confodi imperavit; et Tedium Afrum consulem designatum, quia factum quoddam suum maligno sermone carpsisset, tantis conterruit minis, ut is se praecipitaverit; et Quintum Gallium praetorem, in officio salutationis tabellas duplices veste tectas tenentem, suspicatus gladium occulere, nec quidquam statim, ne aliud inveniretur, ausus inquirere, paulo post per centuriones et milites raptum e tribunali, servilem in modum torsit ac fatentem nihil iussit occidi, prius oculis eius sua manu effossis; quem tamen scribit conloquio petito insidiatum sibi coniectumque a se in custodiam, diende urbe interdicta dimissum, naufragio vel latronum insidiis perisse.

Yet for repentance of this same pertinacity he later honored Titus Vincius Philopoemen, because he was said once to have concealed his patron when proscribed, with equestrian dignity. In this same authority he blazed with multiple odium. For he ordered Pinarius, a Roman knight, when he had noticed, as he himself was haranguing with a crowd of civilians admitted, that the man was taking notes among the soldiers, deeming him a busybody and a speculator, to be stabbed on the spot; and Tedius Afer, consul-designate, because he had carped at a certain deed of his with malicious speech, he so terrified with threats that the man hurled himself down; and Quintus Gallius the praetor, who, in the duty of morning salutatio, was holding double tablets covered by his cloak, suspecting him of hiding a sword, and not daring to search him immediately, lest something else be found, a little later he had him dragged from the tribunal by centurions and soldiers, tortured him in a servile manner, and, though confessing nothing, ordered him to be killed, first gouging out his eyes with his own hand. He does, however, write that, after an interview was requested, the man had lain in wait for him, and that he had cast him into custody and then, with the city interdicted to him, dismissed him, and that he perished by shipwreck or by the ambushes of robbers.

Tribuniciam potestatem perpetuam recepit, in qua semel atque iterum per singula lustra collegam sibi cooptavit. Recepit et morum legumque regimen aeque perpetuum, quo iure, quamquam sine censurae honore, censum tamen populi ter egit; primum ac tertium cum collega, medium solus.

He received the tribunician power perpetual, in which, twice in each lustrum, he co‑opted a colleague to himself. He likewise received the regimen of morals and laws, equally perpetual, by which right, although without the honor of the censorship, nevertheless he held the census of the people three times: the first and the third with a colleague, the middle alone.

[28] De reddenda re p. bis cogitavit: primum post oppressum statim Antonium, memor obiectum sibi ab eo saepius, quasi per ipsum staret ne redderetur; ac rursus taedio diuturnae valitudinis, cum etiam magistratibus ac senatu domum accitis rationarium imperii tradidit. Sed reputans et se privatum non sine periculo fore et illam plurium arbitrio temere committi, in retinenda perseveravit, dubium eventu meliore an voluntate. Quam voluntatem, cum prae se identidem ferret, quodam etiam edicto his verbis testatus est: "Ita mihi salvam ac sospitem rem p. sistere in sua sede liceat atque eius rei fructum percipere, quem peto, ut optimi status auctor dicar et moriens ut feram mecum spem, mansura in vestigio suo fundamenta rei p. quae iecero." Fecitque ipse se compotem voti nisus omni modo, ne quem novi status paeniteret.

[28] He twice thought about restoring the Republic: first, immediately after Antony was suppressed, remembering that it had often been thrown in his teeth by him, as if it depended on himself that it was not restored; and again, out of weariness of protracted ill‑health, when he even summoned the magistrates and the senate to his house and handed over an account‑book of the empire. But, reflecting both that he as a private person would not be without danger and that it would be rashly entrusted to the judgment of several, he persevered in retaining it—whether with a better outcome or intention is doubtful. And this intention, since he repeatedly professed it, he attested also in a certain edict with these words: “Thus may it be permitted me to set the Republic safe and sound in its own seat and to reap the fruit of this thing which I seek: that I may be called the author of an optimal state, and, when dying, may carry with me the hope that the foundations of the Republic which I shall have laid will remain in their place.” And he made himself the fulfiller of his vow, striving in every way that no one should repent of the new order.

Urbem neque pro maiestate imperii ornatam et inundationibus incendiisque obnoxiam excoluit adeo, ut iure sit gloriatus marmoream se relinquere, quam latericiam accepisset. Tutam vero, quantum provideri humana ratione potuit, etiam in posterum praestitit.

He improved the city, which was neither adorned in proportion to the majesty of the empire and was liable to inundations and conflagrations, to such a degree that he rightly boasted he was leaving it of marble, which he had received of brick. He also made it safe, so far as could be provided by human reason, even for the future.

[29] Publica opera plurima exstruxit, e quibus vel praecipua: forum cum aede Martis Ultoris, templum Apollinis in Palatio, aedem Tonantis Iovis in Capitolio. Fori exstruendi causa fuit hominum et iudiciorum multitudo, quae videbatur non sufficientibus duobus etiam tertio indigere; itaque festinatius necdum perfecta Martis aede publicatum est cautumque, ut separatim in eo publica iudicia et sortitiones iudicum fierent. Aedem Martis bello Philippensi pro ultione paterna suscepto voverat; sanxit ergo, ut de bellis triumphisque hic consuleretur senatus, provincias cum imperio petituri hinc deducerentur, quique victores redissent, huc insignia triumphorum conferrent.

[29] He constructed very many public works, of which the principal were: the forum with the temple of Mars the Avenger, the temple of Apollo on the Palatine, the temple of Jupiter the Thunderer on the Capitol. The cause for constructing the forum was the multitude of people and of trials, which seemed, the two not sufficing, to need even a third; and so, more hastily, with the temple of Mars not yet finished, it was opened to the public, and it was provided that public trials and the sortitions of jurors be held there separately. He had vowed the temple of Mars when the Philippian war was undertaken for paternal ultion; he therefore sanctioned that here the senate be consulted concerning wars and triumphs, that those who were to seek provinces with imperium be led forth from here, and that those who had returned as victors should bring here the insignia of their triumphs.

Templum Apollinis in ea parte Palatinae domus excitavit, quam fulmine ictam desiderari a deo haruspices pronuntiarant; addidit porticus cum bibliotheca Latina Graecaque, quo loco iam senior saepe etiam senatum habuit decuriasque iudicum recognovit. Tonanti Iovi aedem consecravit liberatus periculo, cum expeditione Cantabrica per nocturnum iter lecticam eius fulgur praestrinxisset servumque praelucentem exanimasset. Quaedam etiam opera sub nomine alieno, nepotum scilicet et uxoris sororisque fecit, ut porticum basilicamque Gai et Luci, item porticus Liviae et Octaviae theatrumque Marcelli.

He erected the Temple of Apollo in that part of the Palatine house which, having been struck by lightning, the haruspices had pronounced to be claimed by the god; he added porticoes with a Latin and a Greek library, and in that place, when now older, he often even held the senate and reviewed the decuries of jurors. He consecrated a temple to Jupiter Tonans, delivered from danger when, during the Cantabrian expedition on a night march, lightning singed his litter and killed the slave who bore the light. He also made certain works under another’s name—namely of his grandsons and of his wife and sister—such as the Portico and Basilica of Gaius and Lucius, likewise the Portico of Livia and of Octavia, and the Theater of Marcellus.

Sed et ceteros principes viros saepe hortatus est, ut pro facultate quisque monimentis vel novis vel refectis et excultis urbem adornarent. Multaque a multis tunc exstructa sunt, sicut a Marcio Philippo aedes Herculis Musarum, a L. Cornificio aedes Dianae, ab Asinio Pollione atrium Libertatis, a Munatio Planco aedes Saturni, a Cornelio Balbo theatrum, a Statilio Tauro amphitheatrum, a M. vero Agrippa complura et egregia.

Sed he also often exhorted the other leading men, that each according to his means should adorn the city with monuments, whether new or repaired and embellished. And many works were then constructed by many: as by Marcius Philippus the Temple of Hercules of the Muses, by L. Cornificius a Temple of Diana, by Asinius Pollio the Hall of Liberty, by Munatius Plancus a Temple of Saturn, by Cornelius Balbus a theatre, by Statilius Taurus an amphitheater, and by M. Agrippa indeed a good many and distinguished.

[30] Spatium urbis in regiones vicosque divisit instituitque, ut illas annui magistratus sortito tuerentur, hos magistri e plebe cuiusque viciniae lecti. Adversus incendia excubias nocturnas vigilesque commentus est; ad coercendas inundationes alveum Tiberis laxavit ac repurgavit completum olim ruderibus et aedificiorum prolationibus coartatum. Quo autem facilius undique urbs adiretur, desumpta sibi Flaminia via Arimino tenus munienda reliquas triumphalibus viris ex manubiali pecunia sternendas distribuit.

[30] He divided the expanse of the city into regions and vici, and established that the former should be safeguarded by the annual magistrates by lot, the latter by masters chosen from the plebs of each vicinity. Against fires he devised nocturnal watches and watchmen; to restrain inundations he widened and thoroughly cleansed the channel of the Tiber, once filled with rubble and constricted by the prolongations of buildings. And in order that the city might be approached more easily from every side, having taken to himself the Via Flaminia to be paved as far as Ariminum, he allotted the remaining roads to triumphal men to be surfaced from manubial money.

Aedes sacras vetustate conlapsas aut incendio absumptas refecit easque et ceteras opulentissimis donis adornavit, ut qui in cellam Capitolini Iovis sedecim milia pondo auri gemmasque ac margaritas quingenties sestertium una donatione contulerit.

He restored sacred temples that had collapsed through age or been consumed by fire, and he adorned these and the others with most opulent gifts, in that he, for example, contributed into the cella of Capitoline Jupiter sixteen thousand pounds in weight of gold, and gems and pearls amounting to fifty million sesterces, in a single donation.

[31] Postquam vero pontificatum maximum, quem numquam vivo Lepido auferre sustinuerat, mortuo demum suscepit, quidquid fatidicorum librorum Graeci Latinique generis nullis vel parum idoneis auctoribus vulgo ferebatur, supra duo milia contracta undique cremavit ac solos retinuit Sibyllinos, hos quoque dilectu habito; condiditque duobus forulis auratis sub Palatini Apollinis basi. Annum a Divo Iulio ordinatum, sed postea neglegentia conturbatum atque confusum, rursus ad pristinam rationem redegit; in cuius ordinatione Sextilem mensem e suo cognomine nuncupavit magis quam Septembrem quo erat natus, quod hoc sibi et primus consulatus et insignes victoriae optigissent. Sacerdotum et numerum et dignitatem sed et commoda auxit, praecipue Vestalium virginum.

[31] After Lepidus had died, he at last assumed the office of Pontifex Maximus, which he had never brought himself to take away from him while he lived; and whatever prophetic books of Greek and Latin kind, put forth among the common people with no or scarcely suitable authors—more than two thousand, gathered from everywhere—he burned, and he retained only the Sibylline books, these too after holding a selection; and he stored them in two gilded little caskets beneath the base of the Palatine Apollo. The year, arranged by the Deified Julius but afterwards by negligence disturbed and confused, he brought back again to its pristine reckoning; and in the ordination of it he named the month Sextile from his own cognomen rather than September, in which he had been born, because in this month both his first consulship and distinguished victories had befallen him. He increased both the number and the dignity, as well as the privileges, of the priests, especially of the Vestal virgins.

Cumque in demortuae locum aliam capi oporteret ambirentque multi ne filias in sortem darent, adiuravit, si cuiusquam neptium suarum competeret aetas, oblaturum se fuisse eam. Nonnulla etiam ex antiquis caerimoniis paulatim abolita restituit, ut Salutis augurium, Diale flamonium, sacrum Lupercale, ludos Saeculares et Compitalicios. Lupercalibus vetuit currere inberbes, item Saecularibus ludis iuvenes utriusque sexus prohibuit ullum nocturnum spectaculum frequentare nisi cum aliquo maiore natu propinquorum.

And when it was necessary that another be taken in the place of the deceased, and many canvassed so that they might not give their daughters into the lot, he swore that, if the age of any of his granddaughters were suitable, he would have offered her. He also restored certain rites from the ancient ceremonies that had been gradually abolished, such as the augury of Salus, the Dialis priesthood (Flamen Dialis), the Lupercalian sacred rite, and the Secular and Compitalician Games. At the Lupercalia he forbade the beardless to run; likewise, at the Secular Games he prohibited youths of both sexes from frequenting any nocturnal spectacle unless with some relative older in years.

Compitales Lares ornari bis anno instituit vernis floribus et aestivis. Proximum a dis immortalibus honorem memoriae ducum praestitit, qui imperium p. R. ex minimo maximum reddidissent. Itaque et opera cuiusque manentibus titulis restituit et statuas omnium triumphali effigie in utraque fori sui porticu dedicavit, professus et edicto: commentum id se, ut ad illorum vitam velut ad exemplar et ipse, dum viveret, et insequentium aetatium principes exigerentur a civibus.

He decreed that the Compital Lares be adorned twice in the year, with vernal and estival flowers. He bestowed the honor next after the immortal gods upon the memory of the leaders who had made the imperium of the Roman People from very small to very great. And so he restored the works of each, with their inscriptions remaining, and dedicated statues of all, in triumphal likeness, in each portico of his forum, and he also declared by edict: that he had devised this, in order that both he himself, while he lived, and the principes of succeeding ages might be measured by the citizens according to those men’s life, as by an exemplar.

Pompei quoque statuam contra theatri eius regiam marmoreo Iano superposuit translatam e curia, in qua C. Caesar fuerat occisus.

He also set up the statue of Pompey, transferred from the Curia in which Gaius Caesar had been slain, atop a marble Janus-arch, opposite the regia of his theater.

[32] Pleraque pessimi exempli in perniciem publicam aut ex consuetudine licentiaque bellorum civilium duraverant aut per pacem etiam exstiterant. Nam et grassatorum plurimi palam se ferebant succincti ferro, quasi tuendi sui causa, et rapti per agros viatores sine discrimine liberi servique ergastulis possessorum supprimebantur, et plurimae factiones titulo collegi novi ad nullius non facinoris societatem coibant. Igitur grassaturas dispositis per opportuna loca stationibus inhibuit, ergastula recognovit, collegia praeter antiqua et legitima dissolvit.

[32] Most practices of the worst precedent, to the public ruin, had either lasted on from the custom and license of the civil wars, or had even arisen during peace. For very many brigands went about openly, girded with iron, as if for the sake of self-defense; and travelers seized across the fields, without distinction of free and slave, were kept down in the owners’ ergastula; and very many factions, under the title of a “new college,” were uniting into a partnership for every sort of crime. Therefore he checked brigandage by stations posted in suitable places, inspected the ergastula, and dissolved the colleges, except the ancient and lawful ones.

Tabulas veterum aerari debitorum, vel praecipuam calumniandi materiam, exussit; loca in urbe publica iuris ambigui possessoribus adiudicavit; diuturnorum reorum et ex quorum sordibus nihil aliud quam voluptas inimicis quaereretur nomina abolevit condicione proposita, ut si quem quis repetere vellet, par periculum poenae subiret. Ne quod autem maleficium negotiumve inpunitate vel mora elaberetur, triginta amplius dies, qui honoraris ludis occupabantur, actui rerum accommodavit. Ad tris iudicum decurias quartam addidit ex inferiore censu, quae ducenariorum vocaretur iudicaretque de levioribus summis.

He burned the ledgers of old treasury debtors—the principal material for calumny; he adjudicated to the possessors the public sites in the city whose right was ambiguous; he erased the names of long-standing defendants, and of those whose degradation furnished nothing but pleasure to their enemies, with the condition proposed that, if anyone wished to pursue a claim against anyone, he should undergo an equal risk of the penalty. And, lest any misdeed or business should slip away through impunity or delay, he assigned to the transaction of affairs more than thirty days that had been taken up by the magistrates’ honorary games. To the three decuries of judges he added a fourth from the lower census, which should be called that of the ducenarii and should judge matters of lesser sums.

Iudices a tricensimo aetatis anno adlegit, id est quinquennio maturius quam solebant. Ac plerisque iudicandi munus detractantibus vix concessit, ut singulis decuriis per vices annua vacatio esset et ut solitae agi Novembri ac Decembri mense res omitterentur.

He adlected judges from the 30th year of age, that is, by a quinquennium earlier than they were wont. And, as very many were shirking the duty of judging, he scarcely granted that for each decury there should be an annual vacation in rotation, and that the matters usually conducted in the months of November and December be omitted.

[33] Ipse ius dixit assidue et in noctem nonnumquam, si parum corpore valeret lectica pro tribunali collocata, vel etiam domi cubans. Dixit autem ius non diligentia modo summa sed et lenitate, siquidem manifesti parricidii reum, ne culleo insueretur, quod non nisi confessi adficiuntur hac poena, ita fertur interrogasse: "Certe patrem tuum non occidisti?" Et cum de falso testamento ageretur omnesque signatores lege Cornelia tenerentur, non tantum duas tabellas, damnatoriam et absolutoriam, simul cognoscentibus dedit, sed tertiam quoque, qua ignosceretur iis, quos fraude ad signandum vel errore inductos constitisset. Appellationes quotannis urbanorum quidem litigatorum praetori delegabat urbano, at provincialium consularibus viris, quos singulos cuiusque provinciae negotiis praeposuisset.

[33] He himself pronounced judgment assiduously and sometimes into the night; if he was somewhat infirm in body, with his litter set up in place of a tribunal, or even lying at home. Moreover, he dispensed justice not only with the highest diligence but also with lenity; inasmuch as, in the case of a defendant of manifest parricide, so that he might not be sewn into the sack—since none but confessors are afflicted with this penalty—he is reported to have asked thus: "Surely you did not kill your father?" And when a case concerning a forged testament was being tried, and all the signers were held by the Lex Cornelia, he not only gave to those judging together two tablets, a condemnatory and an absolutory one, but a third as well, by which pardon would be granted to those whom it had been established were induced to sign by fraud or by error. Appeals he used each year to delegate: of the city litigants, indeed, to the urban praetor, but of provincials to consular men, each of whom he had put in charge of the affairs of each province.

[34] Leges retractavit et quasdam ex integro sanxit, ut sumptuariam et de adulteriis et de pudicitia, de ambitu, de maritandis ordinibus. Hanc cum aliquanto severius quam ceteras emendasset, prae tumultu recusantium perferre non potuit nisi adempta demum lenitave parte poenarum et vacatione trienni data auctisque praemiis. Sic quoque abolitionem eius publico spectaculo pertinaciter postulante equite, accitos Germanici liberos receptosque partim ad se partim in patris gremium ostentavit, manu vultuque significans ne gravarentur imitari iuvenis exemplum.

[34] He revised the laws and enacted some afresh, such as the sumptuary law, and those on adulteries and on chastity, on electoral canvassing (ambitus), on the marrying of the orders. This one, when he had corrected it somewhat more severely than the others, he could not carry through because of the tumult of those refusing, except by finally removing or softening part of the penalties, granting a three-year exemption, and increasing the rewards. Even so, when the equestrian order persistently demanded its abolition at a public spectacle, he had the children of Germanicus summoned and, receiving them, displayed them, some on his own lap and some in their father’s bosom, indicating by hand and countenance that they should not be reluctant to imitate the young man’s example.

Cumque etiam inmaturitate sponsarum et matrimoniorum crebra mutatione vim legis eludi sentiret, tempus sponsas habendi coartavit, divortiis modum imposuit.

And since he perceived that the force of the law was being evaded also by the immaturity of brides and by the frequent changing of marriages, he curtailed the time for holding betrothals, and imposed a limit on divorces.

[35] Senatorum affluentem numerum deformi et incondita turba - erant enim super mille, et quidam indignissimi et post necem Caesaris per gratiam et praemium adlecti, quos orcinos vulgus vocabat - ad modum pristinum et splendorem redegit duabus lectionibus: prima ipsorum arbitratu, quo vir virum legit, secunda suo et Agrippae; quo tempore existimatur lorica sub veste munitus ferroque cinctus praesedisse decem valentissimis senatorii ordinis amicis sellam suam circumstantibus. Cordus Cremutius scribit ne admissum quidem tunc quemquam senatorum nisi solum et praetemptato sinu. Quosdam ad excusandi se verecundiam compulit servavitque etiam excusantibus insigne vestis et spectandi in orchestra epulandique publice ius.

[35] He reduced the overflowing number of senators, an unsightly and incondite crowd—for they were over a thousand, and some most unworthy, and after the murder of Caesar had been enrolled by favor and reward, whom the vulgar called “Orcine”—back to the former standard and splendor by two selections: the first at their own discretion, wherein man chose man; the second by his own and Agrippa’s. At which time he is thought to have presided with a cuirass under his garment and girt with steel, while ten of the strongest friends of the senatorial order stood around his chair. Cremutius Cordus writes that then not even was any of the senators admitted except alone and after his bosom had been felt beforehand. He compelled some, through a sense of modesty, to excuse themselves, and even for those excusing themselves he preserved the insignia of dress and the right of viewing in the orchestra and of public banqueting.

Quo autem lecti probatique et religiosius et minore molestia senatoria munera fungerentur, sanxit, ut prius quam consideret quisque ture ac mero supplicaret apud aram eius dei, in cuius templo coiretur, et ne plus quam bis in mense legitimus senatus ageretur, Kalendis et Idibus, neve Septembri Octobrive mense ullos adesse alios necesse esset quam sorte ductos, per quorum numerum decreta confici possent; sibique instituit consilia sortiri semenstria, cum quibus de negotiis ad frequentem senatum referendis ante tractaret. Sententias de maiore negotio non more atque ordine sed prout libuisset perrogabat, ut perinde quisque animum intenderet ac si censendum magis quam adsentiendum esset.

Moreover, in order that those chosen and approved might discharge the senatorial duties more religiously and with less annoyance, he enacted that, before anyone should deliberate, he should make supplication with incense and unmixed wine at the altar of that god in whose temple they assembled; and that a lawful senate not be held more than twice in a month, on the Kalends and the Ides; and that in the month of September or October it should be necessary for no others to be present than those drawn by lot, by whose number decrees could be carried. For himself he established to draw councils by lot for half-year terms, with whom he would previously discuss the businesses to be referred to the full senate. He asked for opinions on more important business not by custom and in order, but as it pleased him, so that each might direct his mind just as if he had to judge rather than merely assent.

[36] Auctor et aliarum rerum fuit, in quis: ne acta senatus publicarentur, ne magistratus deposito honore statim in provincias mitterentur, ut proconsulibus ad mulos et tabernacula, quae publice locari solebant, certa pecunia constitueretur, ut cura aerari a quaestoribus urbanis ad praetorios praetoresve transiret, ut centumviralem hastam quam quaesturam functi consuerant cogere decemviri cogerent.

[36] He was the author also of other measures, among which: that the acts of the senate not be published, that magistrates, upon laying down their honor, not be sent immediately into the provinces, that for the proconsuls a fixed sum of money be established for mules and tents, which used to be hired at public charge, that the care of the treasury pass from the urban quaestors to men of praetorian rank or to the praetors, that the centumviral spear (i.e., auction), which those who had discharged the quaestorship were accustomed to conduct, be conducted by the decemvirs.

[37] Quoque plures partem administrandae rei p. caperent, nova officia excogitavit: curam operum publicorum, viarum, aquarum, alvei Tiberis, frumenti populo dividundi, praefecturam urbis, triumviratum legendi senatus et alterum recognoscendi turmas equitum, quotiensque opus esset. Censores creari desitos longo intervallo creavit. Numerum praetorum auxit.

[37] And that more might take a share in administering the Republic, he devised new offices: the care of public works, of roads, of waters, of the channel of the Tiber, of distributing grain to the people, the prefecture of the city, a board of three for choosing the senate, and another for reviewing the squadrons of the equites, whenever there was need. He created censors, discontinued for a long interval. He increased the number of praetors.

Exegit etiam, ut quotiens consulatus sibi daretur, binos pro singulis collegas haberet, nec optinuit, reclamantibus cunctis satis maiestatem eius imminui, quod honorem eum non solus sed cum altero gereret.

He further exacted that, whenever the consulship was given to him, he should have two colleagues in place of single ones; and he did not obtain it, with all protesting that his majesty would be sufficiently diminished, because he would bear that honor not alone but with another.

[38] Nec parcior in bellica virtute honoranda, super triginta ducibus iustos triumphos et aliquanto pluribus triumphalia ornamenta decernenda curavit. Liberis senatorum, quo celerius rei p. assuescerent, protinus a virili toga latum clavum induere et curiae interesse permisit militiamque auspicantibus non tribunatum modo legionum, sed et praefecturas alarum dedit; ac ne qui expers castrorum esset, binos plerumque laticlavios praeposuit singulis alis. Equitum turmas frequenter recognovit, post longam intercapedinem reducto more travectionis.

[38] Nor was he more sparing in honoring martial virtue: he took care that for more than 30 commanders regular triumphs be decreed, and for a good many more, triumphal ornaments. To the sons of senators, in order that they might the more quickly grow accustomed to the republic, he permitted, immediately from the toga of manhood, to don the broad stripe and to be present in the senate; and for those inaugurating military service he granted not only the tribunate of the legions, but also the prefectures of the cavalry wings; and lest anyone be unacquainted with the camp, he for the most part set two wearers of the broad stripe over each ala. He frequently reviewed the squadrons of the equites, the practice of the equestrian transvection having been restored after a long interval.

Sed neque detrahi quemquam in travehendo ab accusatore passus est, quod fieri solebat, et senio vel aliqua corporis labe insignibus permisit, praemisso in ordine equo, ad respondendum quotiens citarentur pedibus venire; mox reddendi equi gratiam fecit eis, qui maiores annorum quinque et triginta retinere eum nollent.

But he did not permit anyone to be dragged down in the travection by an accuser, which used to be done; and he allowed those distinguished by old age or by some bodily blemish, with the horse sent ahead in the order, to come on foot to answer whenever they were summoned; soon he granted the favor of returning the horse to those who were more than thirty-five years of age and did not wish to retain it.

[39] Impetratisque a senatu decem adiutoribus unum quemque equitum rationem vitae reddere coegit atque ex improbatis alios poena, alios ignominia notavit, plures admonitione, sed varia. Lenissimum genus admonitionis fuit traditio coram pugillarium, quos taciti et ibidem statim legerent; notavitque aliquos, quod pecunias levioribus usuris mutuati graviore faenore collocassent.

[39] And having obtained from the senate ten assistants, he compelled each of the equestrians to render an account of his way of life, and from those disapproved he marked some with punishment, others with ignominy, more with admonition—but of various kinds. The most lenient kind of admonition was the handing over, in their presence, of writing-tablets, which they would read silently and immediately on the spot; and he marked some because, having borrowed monies at lighter rates of interest, they had placed them at heavier usury.

[40] Ac comitiis tribuniciis si deessent candidati senatores, ex equitibus R. creavit, ita ut potestate transacta in utro vellent ordine manerent. Cum autem plerique equitum attrito bellis civilibus patrimonio spectare ludos e quattuordecim non auderent metu poenae theatralis, pronuntiavit non teneri ea, quibus ipsis parentibusve equester census umquam fuisset. Populi recensum vicatim egit, ac ne plebs frumentationum causa frequentius ab negotiis avocaretur, ter in annum quaternum mensium tesseras dare destinavit; sed desideranti consuetudinem veterem concessit rursus, ut sui cuiusque mensis acciperet.

[40] And at the tribunician comitia, if senatorial candidates were lacking, he created them from the Roman equites, on condition that, after their power was finished, they should remain in whichever order they wished. But since a majority of the equites, their patrimony worn down by the civil wars, did not dare to view the games from the Fourteen rows for fear of the theatrical penalty, he proclaimed that those were not held to it for whom either themselves or their parents had ever possessed the equestrian census. He conducted a census of the people by wards, and, lest the plebs be more frequently called away from their business for the sake of grain distributions, he determined to give tokens three times in the year for four months; but to anyone desiring the old custom he granted again that each should receive for his own month.

Comitiorum quoque pristinum ius reduxit ac multiplici poena coercito ambitu, Fabianis et Scaptiensibus tribulibus suis die comitiorum, ne quid a quoquam candidato desiderarent, singula milia nummum a se dividebat. Magni praeterea existimans sincerum atque ab omni colluvione peregrini ac servilis sanguinis incorruptum servare populum, et civitates Romanas parcissime dedit et manumittendi modum terminavit. Tiberio pro cliente Graeco petenti rescripsit, non aliter se daturum, quam si praesens sibi persuasisset, quam iustas petendi causas haberet; et Liviae pro quodam tributario Gallo roganti civitatem negavit, immunitatem optulit affirmans facilius se passurum fisco detrahi aliquid, quam civitatis Romanae vulgari honorem.

He also restored the pristine right of the comitia and, ambitus (electoral bribery) being curbed by multiple penalties, to his own tribesmen the Fabiani and the Scaptienses on the day of the comitia, so that they might desire nothing from any candidate, he used to distribute a thousand sesterces apiece from himself. Moreover, thinking it of great moment to keep the people sincere and uncorrupted by any admixture of foreign and servile blood, he both granted Roman citizenship very sparingly and set limits to the mode of manumission. To Tiberius, who was petitioning on behalf of a Greek client, he wrote back that he would grant it only if, being present, he had persuaded him how just were his grounds for seeking it; and to Livia, requesting citizenship for a certain tributary Gaul, he refused citizenship, offered immunity, affirming that he would more readily allow something to be taken from the fiscus than allow the honor of Roman citizenship to be vulgarized.

Servos non contentus multis difficultatibus a libertate et multo pluribus a libertate iusta removisse, cum et de numero et de condicione ac differentia eorum, qui manumitterentur, curiose cavisset, hoc quoque adiecit, ne vinctus umquam tortusve quis ullo libertatis genere civitatem adipisceretur. Etiam habitum vestitumque pristinum reducere studuit, ac visa quondam pro contione pullatorum turba indignabundus et clamitans: "en Romanos, rerum dominos, gentemque togatam!" negotium aedilibus dedit, ne quem posthac paterentur in Foro circave nisi positis lacernis togatum consistere.

Not content to have removed slaves from freedom by many difficulties, and from lawful freedom by many more, since he had carefully provided both about the number and about the condition and distinction of those who were to be manumitted, he added this as well: that no one who was ever bound or tortured should obtain citizenship by any kind of emancipation. He also endeavored to restore the former habit and dress, and, when once a crowd clad in dark garb was seen before a public assembly, indignant and shouting, "behold the Romans, lords of affairs, and the toga-clad nation!" he assigned the aediles the task that henceforth they should allow no one to stand in the Forum or around it unless, cloaks (lacernae) laid aside, he was in a toga.

[41] Liberalitatem omnibus ordinibus per occasiones frequenter exhibuit. Nam et invecta urbi Alexandrino triumpho regia gaza tantam copiam nummariae rei effecit, ut faenore deminuto plurimum agrorum pretiis accesserit, et postea, quotiens ex damnatorum bonis pecunia superflueret, usum eius gratuitum iis, qui cavere in duplum possent, ad certum tempus indulsit. Senatorum censum ampliavit ac pro octingentorum milium summa duodecies sestertium taxavit supplevitque non habentibus.

[41] He frequently exhibited liberality to all orders as occasions arose. For the royal treasure brought into the city by the Alexandrian triumph produced such an abundance of ready money that, interest being reduced, land prices rose greatly; and afterwards, whenever money overflowed from the goods of the condemned, he allowed its use free of charge for a fixed time to those who could give security in double. He enlarged the senatorial census, and instead of the sum of 800,000 he fixed it at 1,200,000 sesterces, and he made up the deficiency for those who did not have it.

Congiaria populo frequenter dedit, sed diversae fere summae: modo quadringenos, modo trecenos, nonnumquam ducenos quinquagenosque nummos; ac ne minores quidem pueros praeteriit, quamvis non nisi ab undecimo aetatis anno accipere consuessent. Frumentum quoque in annonae difficultatibus saepe levissimo, interdum nullo pretio viritim admensus est tesserasque nummarias duplicavit.

He frequently gave largesses (congiaria) to the people, but for generally diverse sums: at one time 400 apiece, at another 300, sometimes 250 coins; nor did he pass over even the younger boys, although they were accustomed to receive only from the eleventh year of age. He also measured out grain to individuals during difficulties of the annona, often at a very slight price, sometimes at no price, and he doubled the monetary tokens.

[42] Sed ut salubrem magis quam ambitiosum principem scires, querentem de inopia et caritate vini populum severissima coercuit voce: satis provisum a genero suo Agrippa perductis pluribus aquis, ne homines sitirent. Eidem populo promissum quidem congiarium reposcenti bonae se fidei esse respondit; non promissum autem flagitanti turpitudinem et impudentiam edicto exprobravit affirmavitque non daturum se quamvis dare destinaret. Nec minore gravitate atque constantia, cum proposito congiario multos manumissos insertosque civium numero comperisset, negavit accepturos quibus promissum non esset, ceterisque minus quam promiserat dedit, ut destinata summa sufficeret.

[42] But, that you might know him as a more healthful-for-the-commonwealth than an ambitious princeps, he restrained with a most severe voice the populace complaining about the scarcity and dearness of wine: enough provision had been made by his son-in-law Agrippa, with several waters brought in, that men should not thirst. To that same people, when they were demanding back the congiary that had been promised, he replied that he was a man of good faith; but to those importunately demanding what had not been promised, he reproached the disgrace and impudence by an edict and affirmed that he would not give, although he had intended to give. And with no less gravity and constancy, when, after a congiary had been proclaimed, he discovered that many manumitted persons had been inserted into the number of citizens, he denied that those to whom it had not been promised would receive it, and to the rest he gave less than he had promised, so that the destined sum might suffice.

Magno vero quondam sterilitate ac difficili remedio cum venalicias et lanistarum familias peregrinosque omnes exceptis medicis et praeceptoribus partimque servitiorum urbe expulisset, ut tandem annona convaluit, impetum se cepisse scribit frumentationes publicas in perpetuum abolendi, quod earum fiducia cultura agrorum cessaret; neque tamen perseverasse, quia certum haberet posse per ambitionem quandoque restitui. Atque ita posthac rem temperavit, ut non minorem aratorum ac negotiantium quam populi rationem deduceret.

But once, in a great sterility and with a difficult remedy, when he had expelled from the city the slave-dealers, the households of the gladiator-trainers, and all foreigners except physicians and teachers, and even some of the servile households besides, when at last the grain-supply recovered, he writes that he conceived the impulse of abolishing the public distributions of grain forever, because, in reliance on them, the cultivation of the fields was ceasing; yet he did not persist, since he held as certain that they could at some time be restored through ambition. And so thereafter he moderated the matter in such a way as to reckon not less the interest of the ploughmen and merchants than that of the people.

[43] Spectaculorum et assiduitate et varietate et magnificentia omnes antecessit. Fecisse se ludos ait suo nomine quater, pro aliis magistratibus, qui aut abessent aut non sufficerent, ter et vicies. Fecitque nonnumquam etiam vicatim ac pluribus scaenis per omnium linguarum histriones, munera non in Foro modo, nec in amphitheatro, sed et in Circo et in Saeptis, et aliquando nihil praeter venationem edidit; athletas quoque exstructis in campo Martio sedilibus ligneis; item navale proelium circa Tiberim cavato solo, in quo nunc Caesarum nemus est.

[43] In the spectacles he surpassed all in assiduity and variety and magnificence. He says that he gave games in his own name four times, and on behalf of other magistrates who were either absent or not sufficient, twenty-three times. And sometimes he produced them also by districts and on several stages, through actors of every language; gladiatorial shows not only in the Forum and in the amphitheater, but also in the Circus and in the Saepta; and at times he put on nothing except a hunt of wild beasts; athletes too, wooden seats having been erected in the Campus Martius; likewise a naval battle near the Tiber, the ground having been hollowed out, in the place where now there is the Grove of the Caesars.

Quibus diebus custodes in urbe disposuit, ne raritate remanentium grassatoribus obnoxia esset. In Circo aurigas cursoresque et confectores ferarum, et nonnumquam ex nobilissima iuventute, produxit. Sed et Troiae lusum edidit frequentissime maiorum minorumque puerorum, prisci decorique moris existimans clarae stirpis indolem sic notescere.

On those days he stationed guards in the city, lest by the scarcity of those remaining it be obnoxious to footpads. In the Circus he brought out charioteers, runners, and dispatchers of wild beasts, and sometimes even from the most noble youth. But he also very frequently put on the game of Troy by boys both older and younger, thinking it an ancient and decorous custom that the inborn nature of a renowned stock be thus made known.

In hoc ludicro Nonium Asprenatem lapsu debilitatum aureo torque donavit passusque est ipsum posterosque Torquati ferre cognomen. Mox finem fecit talia edendi Asinio Pollione oratore graviter invidioseque in curia questo Aesernini nepotis sui casum, qui et ipse crus fregerat. Ad scaenicas quoque et gladiatorias operas et equitibus Romanis aliquando usus est, verum prius quam senatus consulto interdiceretur.

In this spectacle he presented Nonius Asprenas, disabled by a fall, with a golden torque, and allowed him and his descendants to bear the cognomen Torquatus. Soon he put an end to producing such entertainments, when Asinius Pollio, the orator, complained bitterly and with ill will in the Curia about the mishap of his grandson Aeserninus, who likewise had broken his leg. He also at times made use of Roman knights for scenic and gladiatorial performances, but this was before it was forbidden by a senatorial decree.

Postea nihil sane praeterquam adulescentulum Lycium honeste natum exhibuit, tantum ut ostenderet, quod erat bipedali minor, librarum septemdecim ac vocis immensae. Quodam autem muneris die Parthorum obsides tunc primum missos per mediam harenam ad spectaculum induxit superque se subsellio secundo collocavit. Solebat etiam citra spectaculorum dies, si quando quid invisitatum dignumque cognitu advectum esset, id extra ordinem quolibet loco publicare, ut rhinocerotem apud Saepta, tigrim in scaena, anguem quinquaginta cubitorum pro Comitio.

Afterwards he truly exhibited nothing except a young Lycian lad of honorable birth, only so that he might show that he was shorter by two feet, of 17 pounds in weight, and of immense voice. But on a certain day of the games he led the Parthians’ hostages, then for the first time sent, through the middle of the arena for the spectacle, and seated them above himself on the second bench. He was also accustomed, apart from the days of spectacles, if ever something unusual and worthy to know had been brought in, to publish it out of order in whatever place, as a rhinoceros at the Saepta, a tiger on the stage, a snake of fifty cubits before the Comitium.

Accidit votivis circensibus, ut correptus valitudine lectica cubans tensas deduceret; rursus commissione ludorum, quibus theatrum Marcelli dedicabat, evenit ut laxatis sellae curulis compagibus caderet supinus. Nepotum quoque suorum munere cum consternatum ruinae metu populum retinere et confirmare nullo modo posset, transiit e loco suo atque in ea parte consedit, quae suspecta maxime erat.

It happened at the votive circus games that, seized by illness, he, lying in a litter, led in procession the sacred cars (tensae); again, at the opening of the games with which he was dedicating the Theater of Marcellus, it occurred that, the fastenings of his curule chair having been loosened, he fell flat on his back. Also, at a show given by his grandsons, when he could by no means restrain and reassure the people, panic-stricken by fear of a collapse, he left his own place and sat down in that section which was most suspected.

[44] Spectandi confusissimum ac solutissimum morem correxit ordinavitque, motus iniuria senatoris, quem Puteolis per celeberrimos ludos consessu frequenti nemo receperat. Facto igitur decreto patrum ut, quotiens quid spectaculi usquam publice ederetur, primus subselliorum ordo vacaret senatoribus, Romae legatos liberarum sociarumque gentium vetuit in orchestra sedere, cum quosdam etiam libertini generis mitti deprendisset. Militem secrevit a populo.

[44] He corrected and regulated the most confused and most unrestrained custom of spectating, moved by the affront to a senator whom, at Puteoli, during the most celebrated games, in a thronged assembly, no one had received. Therefore, by a decree of the Senate that, whenever any spectacle was anywhere publicly put on, the first rank of benches be vacant for the senators, at Rome he forbade the legates of free and allied nations to sit in the orchestra, since he had discovered that some even of freedman stock were being sent. He separated the soldiery from the populace.

Maritis e plebe proprios ordines assignavit, praetextatis cuneum suum, et proximum paedagogis, sanxitque ne quis pullatorum media cavea sederet. Feminis ne gladiatores quidem, quos promiscue spectari sollemne olim erat, nisi ex superiore loco spectare concessit. Solis virginibus Vestalibus locum in theatro separatim et contra praetoris tribunal dedit.

He assigned to married men of the plebs their own rows, to the praetextati their own cuneus, and the one next to it to the paedagogi, and he enacted that none of the pullati should sit in the middle of the cavea. For women he permitted not even the gladiators—whom once it had been customary to be watched promiscuously—to be viewed except from an upper place. To the Vestal Virgins alone he gave a place in the theatre separately and opposite the praetor’s tribunal.

Athletarum vero spectaculo muliebre secus omne adeo summovit, ut pontificalibus ludis pugilum par postulatum distulerit in insequentis diei matutinum tempus edixeritque mulieres ante horam quintam venire in theatrum non placere.

Moreover, from the spectacle of the athletes he so removed the whole female sex that, at the Pontifical Games, he deferred a requested pair of pugilists to the morning of the following day and proclaimed by edict that it did not please that women come into the theater before the 5th hour.

[45] Ipse circenses ex amicorum fere libertorumque cenaculis spectabat, interdum ex pulvinari et quidem cum coniuge ac liberis sedens. Spectaculo plurimas horas, aliquando totos dies aberat, petita venia commendatisque qui suam vicem praesidendo fungerentur. Verum quotiens adesset, nihil praeterea agebat, seu vitandi rumoris causa, quo patrem Caesarem vulgo reprehensum commemorabat, quod inter spectandum epistulis libellisque legendis aut rescribendis vacaret, seu studio spectandi ac voluptate, qua teneri se neque dissimulavit umquam et saepe ingenue professus est.

[45] He himself used to watch the circus games almost always from the upper rooms of his friends and freedmen, sometimes from the pulvinar, and indeed sitting with his wife and children. He was absent from the spectacle for very many hours, sometimes whole days, leave having been asked and with recommendations given to those who would discharge his place by presiding in his stead. But whenever he was present, he transacted nothing else—either for the sake of avoiding rumor, on which account he recalled that his father Caesar had been commonly reproved, because during the viewing he would occupy himself with reading or answering epistles and little books, or from zeal for watching and pleasure, by which he was held—nor did he ever dissemble it, and he often frankly professed it.

Itaque corollaria et praemia in alienis quoque muneribus ac ludis et crebra et grandia de suo offerebat nullique Graeco certamini interfuit, quo non pro merito quemque certantium honorarit. Spectavit autem studiosissime pugiles et maxime Latinos, non legitimos atque ordinarios modo, quos etiam committere cum Graecis solebat, sed et catervarios oppidanos inter angustias vicorum pugnantis temere ac sine arte. Universum denique genus operas aliquas publico spectaculo praebentium etiam cura sua dignatus est; athletis et conservavit privilegia et ampliavit, gladiatores sine missione edi prohibuit, coercitionem in histriones magistratibus omni tempore et loco lege vetere permissam ademit praeterquam ludis et scaena.

Accordingly he offered, out of his own resources, both frequent and substantial gratuities and prizes even at shows and games given by others; nor did he attend any Greek contest at which he did not honor each of the competitors according to his merit. He watched with the greatest zeal the boxers, and especially the Latins, not only the legitimate and regular ones—whom he was wont also to match with Greeks—but even the “mob-fighters,” townsmen brawling in the narrow lanes, rashly and without art. Finally, he deemed worthy of his care the whole class of those who furnished any services to public spectacle; for the athletes he both preserved and enlarged their privileges; he forbade gladiatorial shows to be given “without reprieve” (sine missione); and he took away from the magistrates the coercive power over actors which by the old law had been permitted at every time and place, except at the games and on the stage.

Nec tamen eo minus aut xysticorum certationes aut gladiatorum pugnas severissime semper exegit. Nam histrionum licentiam adeo compescuit, ut Stephanionem togatarium, cui in puerilem habitum circum tonsam matronam ministrasse compererat, per trina theatra virgis caesum relegaverit, Hylan pantomimum querente praetore in atrio domus suae nemine excluso flagellis verberarit et Pyladen urbe atque Italia summoverit, quod spectatorem, a quo exsibilabatur, demonstrasset digito conspicuumque fecisset.

Nor yet on that account did he any the less always most rigorously exact the xystic contests and the gladiatorial combats. For he so restrained the license of actors that he had Stephanio the togatarius, whom he had discovered to have had a matron, her hair cut round, serving him in the attire of a boy, beaten with rods through three theaters and relegated; he scourged Hylas the pantomime, at the praetor’s complaint, in the atrium of his own house, with no one excluded; and he expelled Pylades from the city and from Italy, because he had pointed out with his finger the spectator by whom he was being hissed and had made him conspicuous.

[46] Ad hunc modum urbe urbanisque rebus administratis Italiam duodetriginta coloniarum numero deductarum a se frequentavit operibusque ac vectigalibus publicis plurifariam instruxit, etiam iure ac dignatione urbi quodam modo pro parte aliqua adaequavit excogitato genere suffragiorum, quae de magistratibus urbicis decuriones colonici in sua quisque colonia ferrent et sub die comitiorum obsignata Romam mitterent. Ac necubi aut honestorum deficeret copia aut multitudinis suboles, equestrem militiam petentis etiam ex commendatione publica cuiusque oppidi ordinabat, at iis, qui e plebe regiones sibi revisenti filios filiasve approbarent, singula nummorum milia pro singulis dividebat.

[46] In this manner, the city and urban affairs being administered, he populated Italy with 28 colonies planted by himself and in many places equipped it with public works and public revenues, and even in right and in dignity he in a certain way, in some part, equalized it to the City by contriving a kind of suffrages, which concerning the urban magistracies the colonial decurions, each in his own colony, should cast and, on the day of the comitia, send sealed to Rome. And lest anywhere there fail either a supply of men of standing or the offspring of the multitude, he would even enroll those seeking equestrian service upon the public recommendation of each town; but to those of the plebs who, as he revisited the regions, would present to him sons or daughters for approval, he distributed a single thousand coins for each.

[47] Provincias validiores et quas annuis magistratuum imperiis regi nec facile nec tutum erat, ipse suscepit, ceteras proconsulibus sortito permisit; et tamen nonnullas commutavit interdum atque ex utroque genere plerasque saepius adiit. Urbium quasdam, foederatas sed ad exitium licentia praecipites, libertate privavit, alias aut aere alieno laborantis levavit aut terrae motu subversas denuo condidit aut merita erga populum R. adlegantes Latinitate vel civitate donavit. Nec est, ut opinor, provincia, excepta dum taxat Africa et Sardinia, quam non adierit.

[47] The more powerful provinces, and those which it was neither easy nor safe to be ruled by the annual imperia of magistrates, he himself took upon himself; the rest he allowed, by allotment, to proconsuls; and yet he sometimes altered certain ones, and from both classes he visited very many rather often. Certain cities, though federate but headlong to destruction through license, he deprived of liberty; others, either struggling with alien bronze (debt), he relieved, or, overthrown by an earthquake, he founded anew; or, alleging their merits toward the Roman people, he endowed with Latin status or citizenship. Nor is there, as I think, a province—except only Africa and Sardinia—that he did not visit.

In has fugato Sex. Pompeio traicere ex Sicilia apparantem continuae et immodicae tempestates inhibuerunt nec mox occasio aut causa traiciendi fuit.

Into these, with Sextus Pompeius put to flight and as he was preparing to cross from Sicily, continuous and immoderate storms inhibited him, nor was there soon any occasion or cause for crossing.

[48] Regnorum quibus belli iure potitus est, praeter pauca, aut iisdem quibus ademerat reddidit aut alienigenis contribuit. Reges socios etiam inter semet ipsos necessitudinibus mutuis iunxit, promptissimus affinitatis cuiusque atque amicitiae conciliator et fautor; nec aliter universos quam membra partisque imperii curae habuit, rectorem quoque solitus apponere aetate parvis aut mente lapsis, donec adolescerent aut resipiscerent; ac plurimorum liberos et educavit simul cum suis et instituit.

[48] Of the kingdoms which he acquired by the right of war, except a few, he either restored them to the same ones from whom he had taken them, or assigned them to the alien-born. He even joined allied kings among themselves by mutual ties, being the most ready conciliator and promoter of every affinity and amity; nor did he hold all of them otherwise than as members and parts of the empire under his care, and he was accustomed also to set a regent over those minors in age or those lapsed in mind, until they should grow up or recover their senses; and the children of very many he both reared together with his own and trained.

[49] Ex militaribus copiis legiones et auxilia provinciatim distribuit, classem Miseni et alteram Ravennae ad tutelam Superi et Inferi maris conlocavit, ceterum numerum partim in urbis partim in sui custodiam adlegit dimissa Calagurritanorum manu, quam usque ad devictum Antonium, item Germanorum, quam usque ad cladem Varianam inter armigeros circa se habuerat. Neque tamen umquam plures quam tres cohortes in urbe esse passus est easque sine castris, reliquas in hiberna et aestiva circa finitima oppida dimittere assuerat. Quidquid autem ubique militum esset, ad certam stipendiorum praemiorumque formulam adstrinxit definitis pro gradu cuiusque et temporibus militiae et commodis missionum, ne aut aetate aut inopia post missionem sollicitari ad res novas possent.

[49] From the military forces he distributed the legions and the auxiliaries by provinces; he stationed a fleet at Misenum and another at Ravenna for the protection of the Upper and the Lower Sea, and he selected the rest of the number partly for the guard of the city and partly for his own guard, having dismissed the band of the Calagurritani, which he had kept among the arms-bearers about him up to the defeat of Antony, and likewise the Germans, whom he had kept up to the Varian disaster. Yet he never allowed more than three cohorts to be in the city, and those without encampments; he was accustomed to dismiss the others into winter and summer quarters around the neighboring towns. Moreover, whatever soldiers there were anywhere, he bound to a fixed formula of stipends and rewards, with the rank of each, the terms of service, and the benefits of discharges defined, so that they might not, either by age or by want after discharge, be stirred to revolutionary movements.

Utque perpetuo ac sine difficultate sumptus ad tuendos eos prosequendosque suppeteret, aerarium militare cum vectigalibus novis constituit. Et quo celerius ac sub manum adnuntiari cognoscique posset, quid in provincia quaque gereretur, iuvenes primo modicis intervallis per militaris vias, dehinc vehicula disposuit. Commodius id visum est, ut qui a loco idem perferunt litteras, interrogari quoque, si quid res exigant, possint.

And in order that funds might be available perpetually and without difficulty for safeguarding them and for seeing them provided for, he established a military treasury together with new taxes. And so that what was being done in each province could be reported and learned more quickly and at once, he at first stationed young men at modest intervals along the military roads, then set up vehicles. This seemed more convenient, so that those who carry the same letters from the place could also be questioned, if circumstances require anything.

[50] In diplomatibus libellisque et epistulis signandis initio sphinge usus est, mox imagine Magni Alexandri, novissime sua, Dioscuridis manu scalpta, qua signare insecuti quoque principes perseverarunt. Ad epistulas omnis horarum quoque momenta nec diei modo sed et noctis, quibus datae significarentur, addebat.

[50] In sealing diplomas, little booklets, and epistles, at first he used a sphinx, soon the image of Alexander the Great, and most recently his own, carved by the hand of Dioscurides, with which image the princes who followed likewise persevered in sealing. To his letters he added the very moments of the hours, not only of the day but also of the night, by which the times at which they were issued might be indicated.

[51] Clementiae civilitatisque eius multa et magna documenta sunt. Ne enumerem, quot et quos diversarum partium venia et incolumitate donatos principem etiam in civitate locum tenere passus sit: Iunium Novatum et Cassium Patavinum e plebe homines alterum pecunia, alterum levi exilio punire satis habuit, cum ille Agrippae iuvenis nomine asperrimam de se epistulam in vulgus edidisset, hic convivio pleno proclamasset neque votum sibi neque animum deesse confodiendi eum. Quadam vero cognitione, cum Aemilio Aeliano Cordubensi inter cetera crimina vel maxime obiceretur quod male opinari de Caesare soleret, conversus ad accusatorem commotoque similis: "Velim," inquit, "hoc mihi probes; faciam sciat Aelianus et me linguam habere, plura enim de eo loquar"; nec quicquam ultra aut statim aut postea inquisiit.

[51] There are many and great proofs of his clemency and civility. Not to enumerate how many and which men of different parties, granted pardon and safety, he allowed to hold even a leading place in the state: he thought it enough to punish Junius Novatus and Cassius of Patavium—men of the common people—the one with a pecuniary penalty, the other with a light exile, since the former had issued to the public under the name of the young Agrippa a very bitter letter about him, while the latter had proclaimed at a full banquet that he lacked neither the wish nor the courage to stab him. In a certain hearing, moreover, when among other charges it was especially objected to Aemilius Aelianus of Corduba that he was wont to think ill of Caesar, turning to the accuser and seeming like one stirred: “I would like,” he said, “for you to prove this to me; I will make Aelianus know that I too have a tongue, for I will say more about him”; and he made no further inquiry either immediately or afterward.

Tiberio quoque de eadem re, sed violentius apud se per epistulam conquerenti ita rescripsit: "Aetati tuae, mi Tiberi, noli in hac re indulgere et nimium indignari quemquam esse, qui de me male loquatur; satis est enim, si hoc habemus ne quis nobis male facere possit."

To Tiberius also, complaining to him about the same matter, but more violently, by letter, he wrote back thus: "Do not, to your age, my Tiberius, indulge yourself in this matter and be too indignant that there is anyone who speaks ill of me; for it is sufficient if we have this, that no one can do us ill."

[52] Templa, quamvis sciret etiam proconsulibus decerni solere, in nulla tamen provincia nisi communi suo Romaeque nomine recepit. Nam in urbe quidem pertinacissime abstinuit hoc honore; atque etiam argenteas statuas olim sibi positas conflavit omnis exque iis aureas cortinas Apollini Palatino dedicavit. Dictaturam magna vi offerente populo genu nixus deiecta ab umeris toga nudo pectore deprecatus est.

[52] Temples, although he knew them to be wont to be decreed even for proconsuls, he accepted in no province, save in the joint name of himself and Rome. For in the city indeed he most stubbornly abstained from this honor; and he even melted down all the silver statues formerly set up to himself, and from them dedicated golden curtains to the Palatine Apollo. The dictatorship, when the people pressed it upon him with great force, he, kneeling, with his toga cast down from his shoulders and his breast bare, deprecatingly refused.

[53] Domini appellationem ut maledictum et obprobrium semper exhorruit. Cum spectante eo ludos pronuntiatum esset in mimo: "O dominum aequum et bonum!" et universi quasi de ipso dictum exsultantes comprobassent, et statim manu vultuque indecoras adulationes repressit et insequenti die gravissimo corripuit edicto; dominumque se posthac appellari ne a liberis quidem aut nepotibus suis vel serio vel ioco passus est atque eius modi blanditias etiam inter ipsos prohibuit. Non temere urbe oppidove ullo egressus aut quoquam ingressus est nisi vespera aut noctu, ne quem officii causa inquietaret.

[53] He always shuddered at the appellation “lord” as a malediction and an opprobrium. When, as he was spectating the games, it was pronounced in a mime: “O an equitable and good lord!” and all, as if it had been said about himself, exulting, had approved, he straightway with hand and countenance checked the unseemly flatteries, and on the following day he castigated them with a most severe edict; and he did not allow himself thereafter to be called “lord” even by his children or grandchildren, whether in earnest or in jest, and he forbade blandishments of that sort even among them themselves. Not readily did he go out from any city or town, nor enter anywhere, except in the evening or at night, lest he disturb anyone on account of duty.

In consulatu pedibus fere, extra consulatum saepe adoperta sella per publicum incessit. Promiscuis salutationibus admittebat et plebem, tanta comitate adeuntium desideria excipiens, ut quendam ioco corripuerit, quod sic sibi libellum porrigere dubitaret, "quasi elephanto stipem." Die senatus numquam patres nisi in curia salutavit et quidem sedentis ac nominatim singulos nullo submonente; etiam discedens eodem modo sedentibus valere dicebat. Officia cum multis mutuo exercuit, nec prius dies cuiusque sollemnes frequentare desiit, quam grandior iam natu et in turba quondam sponsaliorum die vexatus.

In his consulship he went almost always on foot; outside the consulship he often proceeded through the public streets in a covered litter. He admitted even the plebs to indiscriminate salutations, meeting the desires of those approaching with such comity that he once rebuked a man in jest for hesitating to hand him a petition in that fashion, “as if alms to an elephant.” On a day of the senate he never greeted the Fathers except in the Curia, and indeed as they sat, each by name, with no one prompting; even as he departed he in the same way bade farewell to them as they sat. He exercised good offices mutually with many, nor did he cease to frequent the solemn days of each before he was now rather advanced in age and had once been jostled in a crowd on a day of sponsals.

Gallum Cerrinium senatorem minus sibi familiarem, sed captum repente oculis et ob id inedia mori destinantem praesens consolando revocavit ad vitam.

He, being present and by consoling, recalled to life Gallus Cerrinius, a senator not very familiar to him, but suddenly struck blind and on that account determined to die by starvation.

[54] In senatu verba facienti dictum est: "Non intellexi," et ab alio: "Contra dicerem tibi, si locum haberem." Interdum ob immodicas disceptantium altercationes e curia per iram se proripienti quidam ingesserunt licere oportere senatoribus de re p. loqui. Antistius Labeo senatus lectione, cum vir virum legeret, M. Lepidum hostem olim eius et tunc exsulantem legit interrogatusque ab eo an essent alii digniores, suum quemque iudicium habere respondit. Nec ideo libertas aut contumacia fraudi cuiquam fuit.

[54] In the senate, while he was making a speech, someone said: "I did not understand," and another: "I would speak against you, if I had the floor." Sometimes, because of the excessive altercations of the disputants, as he was rushing out of the Curia in anger, certain men pressed upon him that senators ought to be allowed to speak about the commonwealth. Antistius Labeo, at the lection of the senate, when man was choosing man, enrolled Marcus Lepidus, formerly his enemy and at that time in exile; and when asked by him whether there were others more worthy, he replied that each man has his own judgment. Nor on that account did liberty or contumacy prove a harm to anyone.

[55] Etiam sparsos de se in curia famosos libellos nec expavit et magna cura redarguit ac ne requisitis quidem auctoribus id modo censuit, cognoscendum posthac de iis, qui libellos aut carmina ad infamiam cuiuspiam sub alieno nomine edant.

[55] Even the defamatory libels about himself scattered in the Curia he did not take fright at, and he rebutted them with great care; and, with the authors not even being sought out, he decreed only this: that henceforth inquiry be made concerning those who publish libels or songs to the infamy of anyone under an assumed name.

[56] Iocis quoque quorundam invidiosis aut petulantibus lacessitus contra dixit edicto. Et tamen ne de inhibenda testamentorum licentia quicquam constitueretur intercessit. Quotiens magistratuum comitiis interesset, tribus cum candidatis suis circuibat supplicabatque more sollemni.

[56] Even when provoked by the envious or petulant jests of certain persons, he answered by an edict. And yet he interceded, that nothing should be established about restraining the liberty of making testaments. Whenever he was present at the elections of magistrates, he went round the tribes with his candidates and supplicated in the solemn manner.

Ferebat et ipse suffragium in tribu, ut unus e populo. Testem se in iudiciis et interrogari et refelli aequissimo animo patiebatur. Forum angustius fecit non ausus extorquere possessoribus proximas domos.

He too cast his suffrage in his tribe, as one of the people. As a witness in courts he allowed himself both to be interrogated and to be refuted with the greatest equanimity. He made the Forum narrower, not daring to expropriate from the possessors the neighboring houses.

Numquam filios suos populo commendavit ut non adiceret: "Si merebuntur." Eisdem praetextatis adhuc assurrectum ab universis in theatro et a stantibus plausum gravissime questus est. Amicos ita magnos et potentes in civitate esse voluit, ut tamen pari iure essent quo ceteri legibusque iudiciariis aeque tenerentur. Cum Asprenas Nonius artius ei iunctus causam veneficii accusante Cassio Severo diceret, consuluit senatum, quid officii sui putaret; cunctari enim se, ne si superesset, eripere legibus reum, sin deesset, destituere ac praedamnare amicum existimaretur; et consentientibus universis sedit in subselliis per aliquot horas, verum tacitus et ne laudatione quidem iudiciali data.

He never commended his sons to the people without adding: “If they shall deserve it.” He complained most gravely that to those same, still in the toga praetexta, all in the theater rose, and there was applause by those standing. He wished his friends to be so great and powerful in the state that nevertheless they should be on equal right with the rest and be held equally by judicial laws. When Nonius Asprenas, more closely joined to him, was pleading a case of poisoning, with Cassius Severus as accuser, he consulted the senate what it thought to be his duty; for he was hesitating, lest, if he were present, he be thought to snatch the defendant from the laws, but if he were absent, to abandon and pre-condemn his friend; and, with all consenting, he sat on the benches for several hours, but silent and without even a judicial laudation given.

Affuit et clientibus, sicut Scutario cuidam evocato quondam suo, qui postulabatur iniuniarum. Unum omnino e reorum numero ac ne eum quidem nisi precibus eripuit, exorato coram iudicibus accusatore, Castricium, per quem de coniuratione Murenae cognoverat.

He stood by his clients too, as in the case of a certain Scutarius, once his evocatus, who was being prosecuted on a charge of outrages. Only one person at all from the number of defendants did he rescue, and not even him except by entreaties, the accuser being won over in the presence of the judges—Castricius, through whom he had learned about the conspiracy of Murena.

[57] Pro quibus meritis quanto opere dilectus sit, facile est aestimare. Omitto senatus consulta, quia possunt videri vel necessitate expressa vel verecundia. Equites R. natalem eius sponte atque consensu biduo semper celebrarunt.

[57] From these merits, how greatly he was beloved is easy to estimate. I omit the decrees of the senate, because they can seem to have been wrung out either by necessity or by deference. The Roman equestrians, of their own accord and by common consent, always celebrated his birthday for two days.

Omnes ordines in lacum Curti quotannis ex voto pro salute eius stipem iaciebant, item Kal. Ian. strenam in Capitolio etiam absenti, ex qua summa pretiosissima deorum simulacra mercatus vicatim dedicabat, ut Apollinem Sandaliarium et Iovem Tragoedum aliaque.

All the orders every year, at the Lacus Curtius, by vow for his safety, threw in a coin-contribution; likewise on the Kalends of January they offered a New Year’s gift on the Capitoline even when he was absent, and from that sum he would purchase and dedicate, neighborhood by neighborhood, the most precious images of the gods, such as Apollo Sandaliarius and Jupiter Tragoedus, and others.

In restitutionem Palatinae domus incendio absumptae veterani, decuriae, tribus atque etiam singillatim e cetero genere hominum libentes ac pro facultate quisque pecunias contulerunt, delibante tantum modo eo summarum acervos neque ex quoquam plus denario auferente. Revertentem ex provincia non solum faustis ominibus, sed et modulatis carminibus prosequebantur. Observatum etiam est, ne quotiens introiret urbem, supplicium de quoquam sumeretur.

For the restitution of the Palatine house consumed by fire, the veterans, the decuries, the tribes, and even, singly, people from the remaining sort of men contributed monies willingly, each according to his means, he merely delibating the heaps of the sums and taking from no one more than a single denarius. As he was returning from the province, they escorted him not only with auspicious omens but also with modulated songs. It was also observed that, whenever he entered the city, no punishment be exacted of anyone.

[58] Patris patriae cognomen universi repentino maximoque consensu detulerunt ei: prima plebs legatione Antium missa; dein, quia non recipiebat, ineunti Romae spectacula frequens et laureata; mox in curia senatus, neque decreto neque adclamatione, sed per Valerium Messalam. Is mandantibus cunctis: "Quod bonum," inquit, "faustumque sit tibi domuique tuae, Caesar Auguste! Sic enim nos perpetuam felicitatem rei p. et laeta huic [urbi] precari existimamus: senatus te consentiens cum populo R. consalutat patriae patrem." Cui lacrimans respondit Augustus his verbis – ipsa enim, sicut Messalae, posui –: "Compos factus votorum meorum, patres conscripti, quid habeo aliud deos immortales precari, quam ut hunc consensum vestrum ad ultimum finem vitae mihi perferre liceat?"

[58] The cognomen Father of the Fatherland all, by a sudden and very great consensus, conferred upon him: first the plebs, by a legation sent from Antium; then, because he did not accept it, as he was entering Rome, the spectators at the shows, numerous and laurel-crowned; soon in the curia the senate, neither by decree nor by acclamation, but through Valerius Messalla. He, all commissioning him, said: "May it be good and auspicious for you and your household, Caesar Augustus! For thus do we judge we are praying for the perpetual felicity of the commonwealth and joyous things for this [city]: the senate, in agreement with the Roman people, salutes you as Father of the Fatherland." To this, weeping, Augustus replied in these words—indeed I have set them down themselves, just as Messalla’s—: "Having obtained the fulfillment of my vows, Conscript Fathers, what else have I to pray from the immortal gods, than that it may be permitted me to carry this your consensus to the ultimate end of life?"

[59] Medico Antonio Musae, cuius opera ex ancipiti morbo convaluerat, statuam aere conlato iuxta signum Aesculapi statuerunt. Nonnulli patrum familiarum testamento caverunt, ut ab heredibus suis praelato titulo victimae in Capitolium ducerentur votumque pro se solveretur, quod superstitem Augustum reliquissent. Quaedam Italiae civitates diem, quo primum ad se venisset, initium anni fecerunt.

[59] To the physician Antonius Musa, by whose service he had recovered from a dangerous illness, they set up a statue with bronze contributed, next to the image of Aesculapius. Several heads of families provided by will that, with a title borne in front, victims should be led into the Capitol by their heirs and that a vow should be discharged on their behalf, because they had left Augustus surviving. Certain cities of Italy made the day on which he first came to them the beginning of their year.

Provinciarum pleraeque super templa et aras ludos quoque quinquennales paene oppidatim constituerunt.

Very many of the provinces, in addition to temples and altars, also established quinquennial games almost town-by-town.

[60] Reges amici atque socii et singuli in suo quisque regno Caesareas urbes condiderunt et cuncti simul aedem Iovis Olympii Athenis antiquitus incohatam perficere communi sumptu destinaverunt Genioque eius dedicare; ac saepe regnis relictis non Romae modo sed et provincias peragranti cotidiana officia togati ac sine regio insigni more clientium praestiterunt.

[60] Kings who were friends and allies, each individually in his own realm, founded Caesarean cities; and all together they resolved to complete at common expense the temple of Olympian Jupiter at Athens, long since begun, and to dedicate it to his Genius; and often, leaving their kingdoms, they rendered daily courtesies, in togas and without royal insignia, after the manner of clients, not only at Rome but also to him as he traversed the provinces.

[61] Quoniam qualis in imperiis ac magistratibus regendaque per terrarum orbem pace belloque re p. fuerit, exposui, referam nunc interiorem ac familiarem eius vitam quibusque moribus atque fortuna domi et inter suos egerit a iuventa usque ad supremum vitae diem. Matrem amisit in primo consulatu, sororem Octaviam quinquagensimum et quartum agens aetatis annum. Utrique cum praecipua officia vivae praestitisset, etiam defunctae honores maximos tribuit.

[61] Since I have set forth what sort of man he was in commands and magistracies, and in governing the commonwealth throughout the orb of lands in peace and in war, I will now relate his inner and familiar life, and with what habits and fortune he conducted himself at home and among his own, from youth up to the last day of his life. He lost his mother in his first consulship, his sister Octavia while he was in his fifty-fourth year. To each, since he had rendered outstanding services while she was alive, he also bestowed the greatest honors when she was dead.

[62] Sponsam habuerat adulescens P. Servili Isaurici filiam, sed reconciliatus post primam discordiam Antonio, expostulantibus utriusque militibus ut et necessitudine aliqua iungerentur, privignam eius Claudiam, Fulviae ex P. Clodio filiam, duxit uxorem vixdum nubilem ac simultate cum Fulvia socru orta dimisit intactam adhuc et virginem. Mox Scriboniam in matrimonium accepit nuptam ante duobus consularibus, ex altero etiam matrem. Cum hac quoque divortium fecit, "pertaesus," ut scribit, "morum perversitatem eius," ac statim Liviam Drusillam matrimonio Tiberi Neronis et quidem praegnantem abduxit dilexitque et probavit unice ac perseveranter.

[62] As a youth he had as fiancée the daughter of Publius Servilius Isauricus; but, having been reconciled to Antony after their first discord, at the demand of the soldiers of both that they also be bound by some tie of kinship, he took to wife his stepdaughter Claudia, the daughter of Fulvia by Publius Clodius, scarcely of marriageable age; and, a quarrel having arisen with Fulvia his mother‑in‑law, he dismissed her still untouched and a virgin. Soon he received Scribonia into marriage, who had previously been wed to two consulars and had even borne a child to one of them. With this one too he made a divorce, “wearied,” as he writes, “by the perversity of her morals,” and straightway he carried off Livia Drusilla from the marriage of Tiberius Nero, and indeed pregnant, and he loved and approved her singularly and steadfastly.

[63] Ex Scribonia Iuliam, ex Livia nihil liberorum tulit, cum maxime cuperet. Infans, qui conceptus erat, immaturus est editus. Iuliam primum Marcello Octaviae sororis suae filio tantum quod pueritiam egresso, deinde, ut is obiit, M. Agrippae nuptum dedit exorata sorore, ut sibi genero cederet; nam tunc Agrippa alteram Marcellarum habebat et ex ea liberos.

[63] From Scribonia he had Julia; from Livia he had no children, though he most greatly desired it. The infant that had been conceived was delivered untimely. He first gave Julia in marriage to Marcellus, the son of his sister Octavia, only just out of boyhood; then, when he died, he gave her to Marcus Agrippa as a bride, his sister having been prevailed upon to yield her son-in-law to him; for at that time Agrippa had another of the Marcellas and children by her.

Hoc quoque defuncto, multis ac diu, etiam ex equestri ordine, circumspectis condicionibus, Tiberium privignum suum elegit coegitque praegnantem uxorem et ex qua iam pater erat dimittere. M. Antonius scribit primum eum Antonio filio suo despondisse Iuliam, dein Cotisoni Getarum regi, quo tempore sibi quoque in vicem filiam regis in matrimonium petisset.

This one too having died, after many conditions had been carefully surveyed for a long time—even from the equestrian order—he chose Tiberius, his stepson, and compelled him to dismiss his wife, who was pregnant and by whom he was already a father. Marcus Antonius writes that at first he betrothed Julia to Antony, his son, then to Cotiso, king of the Getae, at which time he had also sought, in exchange, the king’s daughter in marriage for himself.

[64] Nepotes ex Agrippa et Iulia tres habuit C. et L. et Agrippam, neptes duas Iuliam et Agrippinam. Iuliam L. Paulo censoris filio, Agrippinam Germanico sororis suae nepoti collocavit. Gaium et L. adoptavit domi per assem et libram emptos a patre Agrippa tenerosque adhuc ad curam rei p. admovit et consules designatos circum provincias exercitusque dimisit.

[64] He had three grandsons from Agrippa and Julia—Gaius and Lucius and Agrippa—and two granddaughters, Julia and Agrippina. Julia he settled with Lucius Paulus, son of the censor; Agrippina, with Germanicus, the grandson of his sister. Gaius and Lucius he adopted at home by purchase “with the as and the scales” from their father Agrippa, and while still tender he introduced them to the care of the republic, and, already designated as consuls, he sent them around the provinces and the armies.

Filiam et neptes ita instituit, ut etiam lanificio assuefaceret vetaretque loqui aut agere quicquam nisi propalam et quod in diurnos commentarios referretur; extraneorum quidem coetu adeo prohibuit, ut L. Vinicio, claro decoroque iuveni, scripserit quondam parum modeste fecisse eum, quod filiam suam Baias salutatum venisset. Nepotes et litteras et natare aliaque rudimenta per se plerumque docuit, ac nihil aeque elaboravit quam ut imitarentur chirographum suum; neque cenavit una, nisi ut in imo lecto assiderent, neque iter fecit, nisi ut vehiculo anteirent aut circa adequitarent.

His daughter and granddaughters he trained in such a way as even to accustom them to wool-working, and to forbid them to say or do anything except openly and such as would be entered into the daily commentaries; he so prohibited the company of outsiders that he once wrote to L. Vinicius, a young man distinguished and comely, that he had acted somewhat immodestly in having come to Baiae to pay his respects to his daughter. His grandsons he himself for the most part taught letters and to swim and other rudiments, and he labored at nothing so much as that they imitate his own chirograph; nor did he dine together with them, except that they sat on the lowest couch, nor did he make a journey, unless they went ahead in a carriage or rode around alongside.

[65] Sed laetum eum atque fidentem et subole et disciplina domus Fortuna destituit. Iulias, filiam et neptem, omnibus probris contaminatas relegavit; G. et L. in duodeviginti mensium spatio amisit ambos, Gaio in Lycia, Lucio Massiliae defunctis. Tertium nepotem Agrippam simulque privignum Tiberium adoptavit in foro lege curiata; ex quibus Agrippam brevi ob ingenium sordidum ac ferox abdicavit seposuitque Surrentum.

[65] But Fortune deserted him, cheerful and confident as he was both in offspring and in the discipline of his house. The Julias, his daughter and his granddaughter, tainted with every disgrace, he relegated. He lost both G. and L. within the space of 18 months, Gaius dying in Lycia, Lucius at Massilia. He adopted his third grandson Agrippa, and along with him his stepson Tiberius, in the Forum by curiate law; of these he soon disowned Agrippa for a base and fierce disposition and set him apart at Surrentum.

Aliquanto autem patientius mortem quam dedecora suorum tulit. Nam C. Lucique casu non adeo fractus, de filia absens ac libello per quaestorem recitato notum senatui fecit abstinuitque congressu hominum diu prae pudore, etiam de necanda deliberavit. Certe cum sub idem tempus una ex consciis liberta Phoebe suspendio vitam finisset, maluisse se ait Phoebes patrem fuisse.

However, he bore death somewhat more patiently than the disgraces of his own. For by the misfortune of Gaius and Lucius he was not so broken; about his daughter, being absent, and by a booklet read out through the quaestor he made it known to the senate, and he abstained from the company of men for a long time out of shame, and even deliberated about having her put to death. Certainly, when at about the same time one of her accomplices, the freedwoman Phoebe, had ended her life by hanging, he said that he would rather have been Phoebe’s father.

Relegatae usum vini omnemque delicatiorem cultum ademit neque adiri a quoquam libero servove nisi se consulto permisit, et ita ut certior fieret, qua is aetate, qua statura, quo colore esset, etiam quibus corporis notis vel cicatricibus. Post quinquennium demum ex insula in continentem lenioribusque paulo condicionibus transtulit eam. Nam ut omnino revocaret, exorari nullo modo potuit, deprecanti saepe p. R. et pertinacius instanti tales filias talesque coniuges pro contione inprecatus.

He deprived the relegated one of the use of wine and of every more delicate cultivation of dress, and he permitted her to be approached by no one, free or slave, unless with himself consulted—and in such a way that he might be informed what age the person was, what stature, what color, and even what bodily marks or scars. After five years at last he transferred her from the island to the mainland under conditions a little gentler. For to recall her entirely he could by no means be prevailed upon, though the p. R. often interceded and pressed more persistently; he called down upon them in public assembly such daughters and such wives.

Ex nepte Iulia post damnationem editum infantem adgnosci alique vetuit. Agrippam nihilo tractabiliorem, immo in dies amentiorem, in insulam transportavit saepsitque insuper custodia militum. Cavit etiam s. c. ut eodem loci in perpetuum contineretur.

From his granddaughter Julia he forbade that the infant born after her condemnation be acknowledged or reared. Agrippa, no whit more tractable—nay, more insane by the day—he transported to an island and, moreover, enclosed with the custody of soldiers. He also provided, by a decree of the senate, that he be kept in the same place in perpetuity.

Atque ad omnem et eius et Iuliarum mentionem ingemiscens proclamare etiam solebat:

And at every mention both of him and of the Julias, groaning, he even used to exclaim:

Nec aliter eos appellare quam tris vomicas ac tria carcinomata sua.

Nor did he call them anything other than his three abscesses and three carcinomata.

[66] Amicitias neque facile admisit et constantissime retinuit, non tantum virtutes ac merita cuiusque digne prosecutus, sed vitia quoque et delicta, dum taxat modica, perpessus. Neque enim temere ex omni numero in amicitia eius afflicti reperientur praeter Salvidienum Rufum, quem ad consulatum usque, et Cornelium Gallum, quem ad praefecturam Aegypti, ex infima utrumque fortuna provexerat. Quorum alterum res novas molientem damnandum senatui tradidit, alteri ob ingratum et malivolum animum domo et provinciis suis interdixit.

[66] He did not readily admit friendships, and he retained them most steadfastly, not only having duly pursued the virtues and merits of each person, but also having endured vices and offenses too, provided they were moderate. For indeed scarcely will any be found, out of the whole number, afflicted in his friendship, except Salvidienus Rufus, whom he had advanced even to the consulship, and Cornelius Gallus, whom to the prefecture of Egypt—each of them he had promoted from the lowest fortune. Of these he handed over the one, as contriving innovations, to the senate to be condemned; to the other, on account of an ungrateful and malevolent spirit, he interdicted his house and his provinces.

Sed Gallo quoque et accusatorum denuntiationibus et senatus consultis ad necem conpulso laudavit quidem pietatem tanto opere pro se indignantium, ceterum et inlacrimavit et vicem suam conquestus est, quod sibi soli non liceret amicis, quatenus vellet, irasci. Reliqui potentia atque opibus ad finem vitae sui quisque ordinis principes floruerunt, quanquam et offensis intervenientibus. Desideravit enim nonnumquam, ne de pluribus referam, et M. Agrippae patientiam et Maecenatis taciturnitatem, cum ille ex levi frigoris suspicione et quod Marcellus sibi anteferretur, Mytilenas se relictis omnibus contulisset, hic secretum de comperta Murenae coniuratione uxori Terentiae prodidisset.

But when Gallus too had been driven to death both by the denunciations of his accusers and by decrees of the senate, he did indeed praise the pietas of those who with such great zeal were indignant on his behalf; nevertheless he also shed tears and complained on his own account that he alone was not permitted to be angry with friends as much as he wished. The rest, in power and resources, flourished to the end of life as chiefs of their several orders, although with offenses intervening. For he sometimes missed—not to speak of more—the patience of M. Agrippa and the taciturnity of Maecenas, since the former, on a slight suspicion of coolness and because Marcellus was preferred to him, had betaken himself to Mytilene with everything left behind; the latter had betrayed to his wife Terentia a secret about the discovered conspiracy of Murena.

Exegit et ipse in vicem ab amicis benivolentiam mutuam, tam a defunctis quam a vivis. Nam quamvis minime appeteret hereditates, ut qui numquam ex ignoti testamento capere quicquam sustinuerit, amicorum tamen suprema iudicia morosissime pensitavit, neque dolore dissimulato, si parcius aut citra honorem verborum, neque gaudio, si grate pieque quis se prosecutus fuisset. Legata vel partes hereditatium a quibuscumque parentibus relicta sibi aut statim liberis eorum concedere aut, si pupillari aetate essent, die virilis togae vel nuptiarum cum incremento restituere consueverat.

He in turn exacted from his friends mutual benevolence, from the deceased as well as from the living. For although he least sought after inheritances—as one who had never endured to take anything from the testament of a stranger—yet he most scrupulously weighed the last dispositions (wills) of his friends, neither dissembling his grief if one had provided more sparingly or without the honor of words, nor his joy if someone had honored him gratefully and dutifully. Legacies or shares of inheritances left to him by any parents he was accustomed either to concede at once to their children, or, if they were of ward age, to restore on the day of the toga virilis or of marriage, with an increment.

[67] Patronus dominusque non minus severus quam facilis et clemens multos libertorum in honore et usu maximo habuit, ut Licinum et Celadum aliosque. Cosmum servum gravissime de se opinantem non ultra quam compedibus coercuit. Diomeden dispensatorem, a quo simul ambulante incurrenti repente fero apro per metum obiectus est, maluit timiditatis arguere quam noxae, remque non minimi periculi, quia tamen fraus aberat, in iocum vertit.

[67] As patron and master, no less severe than easy and clement, he held many of his freedmen in the highest honor and use, such as Licinus and Celadus and others. The slave Cosmus, who conceived a very weighty opinion of himself, he restrained no further than with fetters. Diomedes the dispenser, by whom, while they were walking together, he was, through fear, thrust forward in the path of a suddenly charging wild boar, he preferred to charge with timidity rather than with fault, and he turned a matter of no small danger—since, however, fraud was absent—into a joke.

Idem Polum ex acceptissimis libertis mori coegit compertum adulterare matronas; Thallo a manu, quod pro epistula prodita denarios quingentos accepisset, crura ei fregit; paedagogum ministrosque C. fili, per occasionem valitudinis mortisque eius superbe avareque in provincia grassatos, oneratis gravi pondere cervicibus praecipitavit in flumen.

Likewise, he compelled Polus, among his most favored freedmen, to die, having been found out to adulterate matrons; Thallus, his secretary, because he had accepted five hundred denarii in exchange for a betrayed letter, he had his legs broken; the tutor and attendants of his son Gaius, who, taking the occasion of his illness and death, had run riot arrogantly and avariciously in the province, with their necks burdened by a heavy weight, he hurled headlong into the river.

[68] Prima iuventa variorum dedecorum in famiam subiit. Sextus Pompeius ut effeminatum insectatus est; M. Antonius adoptionem avunculi stupro meritum; item L. Marci frater, quasi pudicitiam delibatam a Caesare Aulo etiam Hirtio in Hispania trecentis milibus nummum substraverit solitusque sit crura suburere nuce ardenti, quo mollior pilus surgeret. Sed et populus quondam universus ludorum die et accepit in contumeliam eius et adsensu maximo conprobavit versum in scaena pronuntiatum de gallo Matris Deum tympanizante: "Videsne, ut cinaedus orbem digito temperat?"

[68] In his first youth he fell into infamy for various disgraces. Sextus Pompeius attacked him as effeminate; Marcus Antonius said that he had earned his uncle’s adoption by debauchery; likewise the brother of Lucius Marcius alleged that, his modesty having been tasted by Caesar, he had also laid himself under Aulus Hirtius in Spain for 300,000 sesterces, and that he was accustomed to singe his legs with a burning nut, so that softer hair might rise. But even the whole populace once, on a day of games, both took to his insult and with the greatest assent approved a verse pronounced on the stage about the gallus of the Mother of the Gods beating the tympanum: "Do you see how the catamite tempers the world with his finger?"

[69] Adulteria quidem exercuisse ne amici quidem negant, excusantes sane non libidine, sed ratione commissa, quo facilius consilia adversariorum per cuiusque mulieres exquireret. M. Antonius super festinatas Liviae nuptias obiecit et feminam consularem e triclinio viri coram in cubiculum abductam, rursus in convivium rubentibus auriculis incomptiore capillo reductam; dimissam Scriboniam, quia liberius doluisset nimiam potentiam paelicis; condiciones quaesitas per amicos, qui matres familias et adultas aetate virgines denudarent atque perspicerent, tamquam Toranio mangone vendente. Scribit etiam ad ipsum haec familiariter adhuc necdum plane inimicus aut hostis: "Quid te mutavit?

[69] That he indeed practiced adulteries not even his friends deny, excusing them to be committed not from libido but by rationale, in order the more easily to seek out the counsels of adversaries through each man’s women. M. Antonius alleged, in connection with the hurried nuptials of Livia, that a consular woman was led from her husband’s dining room, in his presence, into the bedchamber, and then was brought back into the banquet with ears reddening and hair the more unkempt; that Scribonia was dismissed because she had more freely lamented the excessive power of the mistress; that arrangements were sought through friends for matrons and virgins of age to be stripped and inspected, as though Toranius the slave‑dealer were selling. He also writes these things to him in a familiar way, as yet not plainly an enemy or a foe: "What has changed you?

Quod reginam ineo? Uxor mea est. Nunc coepi an abhinc annos novem?

That the queen I consort with? She is my wife. Did I begin now, or nine years ago?

Tu deinde solam Drusillam inis? Ita valeas, uti tu, hanc epistulam cum leges, non inieris Tertullam aut Terentillam aut Rufillam aut Salviam Titiseniam aut omnes. An refert, ubi et in qua arrigas?

Do you then go in to Drusilla alone? So may you fare well, as that you, when you read this letter, shall not have gone in to Tertulla or Terentilla or Rufilla or Salvia Titisenia—or all of them. Or does it matter where and in whom you get an erection?

[70] Cena quoque eius secretior in fabulis fuit, quae vulgo δωδεκάθεος vocabatur; in qua deorum dearumque habitu discubuisse convivas et ipsum pro Apolline ornatum non Antoni modo epistulae singulorum nomina amarissime enumerantis exprobrant, sed et sine auctore notissimi versus:

[70] His more secret dinner, too, was in the tales, which in the common tongue was called the δωδεκάθεος; at it the guests reclined in the garb of gods and goddesses, and he himself was adorned as Apollo: not only do Antony’s epistles, most bitterly enumerating the several names, upbraid him for this, but also some exceedingly well-known verses without an author:

Cum primum istorum conduxit mensa choragum,
    Sexque deos vidit Mallia sexque deas,
Impia dum Phoebi Caesar mendacia ludit,
    Dum nova divorum cenat adulteria:
Omnia se a terris tunc numina declinarunt,
    Fugit et auratos Iuppiter ipse thronos.

When first the table of those men hired a choragus,
    and Mallia saw six gods and six goddesses,
while Caesar plays the impious lies of Phoebus,
    while he dines upon the new adulteries of the gods:
then all the divinities turned themselves away from the earth,
    and Jupiter himself fled his gilded thrones.

Auxit cenae rumorem summa tunc in civitate penuria ac fames, adclamatumque est postridie omne frumentum deos comedisse et Caesarem esse plane Apollinem, sed Tortorem, quo cognomine is deus quadam in parte urbis colebatur. Notatus est et ut pretiosae supellectilis Corinthiorumque praecupidus et aleae indulgens. Nam et proscriptionis tempore ad statuam eius ascriptum est:

The extreme scarcity and famine then in the city increased the rumor about the dinner, and the next day it was cried out that the gods had eaten all the grain and that Caesar was plainly Apollo, but the Torturer—by which cognomen that god was worshiped in a certain part of the city. He was also marked as over-eager for precious furnishings and Corinthian bronzes, and as indulging in dice. For even at the time of the proscription there was written on his statue:

Pater argentarius, ego Corinthiarius,

My father a money-changer, I a Corinthian-bronze dealer,

cum existimaretur quosdam propter vasa Corinthia inter proscriptos curasse referendos; et deinde bello Siciliensi epigramma vulgatum est:

since it was thought that some had taken care to have persons entered among the proscribed on account of Corinthian bronzes; and then, in the Sicilian War, an epigram was circulated:

Postquam bis classe victus naves perdidit,
Aliquando ut vincat, ludit assidue aleam.

After he was twice vanquished in a fleet action, he lost his ships,
in order that he may win someday, he plays assiduously at dice.

[71] Ex quibus sive criminibus sive maledictis infamiam impudicitiae facillime refutavit et praesentis et posterae vitae castitate; item lautitiarum invidiam, cum et Alexandria capta nihil sibi praeter unum murrinum calicem ex instrumento regio retinuerit et mox vasa aurea assiduissimi usus conflaverit omnia. Circa libidines haesit, postea quoque, ut ferunt, ad vitiandas virgines promptior, quae sibi undique etiam ab uxore conquirerentur. Aleae rumorem nullo modo expavit lusitque simpliciter et palam oblectamenti causa etiam senex ac praeterquam Decembri mense aliis quoque festis et profestis diebus.

[71] Of these, whether charges or slanders, he very easily refuted the infamy of impudicity by the chastity of both his present and later life; likewise the ill-will of luxuries, since, even when Alexandria was captured, he retained for himself nothing from the royal furnishings except a single murrhine cup, and soon he melted down all the gold vessels of the most assiduous use. In regard to lusts he faltered, later also, as they say, being more prompt to debauch virgins, who were procured for him from everywhere, even by his wife. The rumor about dice he feared in no way, and he played simply and openly for the sake of amusement even as an old man, and, besides the month of December, also on other feast and non-feast days.

Nec id dubium est. Autographa quadam epistula: "Cenavi," ait, "mi Tiberi, cum iisdem; accesserunt convivae Vinicius et Silius pater. Inter cenam lusimus geronticos et heri et hodie; talis enim iactatis, ut quisque canem aut senionem miserat, in singulos talos singulos denarios in medium conferebat, quos tollebat universos, qui Venerem iecerat." Et rursus aliis litteris: "Nos, mi Tiberi, Quinquatrus satis iucunde egimus; lusimus enim per omnis dies forumque aleatorium calfecimus.

Nor is that doubtful. In a certain autograph letter: "I dined," he says, "my Tiberius, with the same; the guests Vinicius and Silius the father joined us. During dinner we played 'gerontics' both yesterday and today; for, the dice being thrown, whenever anyone had sent down a 'dog' or a 'senio', he would contribute into the middle one denarius for each die, and the one who had thrown a 'Venus' would take them all." And again in other letters: "We, my Tiberius, have kept the Quinquatrus quite pleasantly; for we have played through all the days and have warmed up the gambling forum.

Frater tuus magnis clamoribus rem gessit; ad summam tamen perdidit non multum, sed ex magnis detrimentis praeter spem paulatim retractum est. Ego perdidi viginti milia nummum meo nomine, sed cum effuse in lusu liberalis fuissem, ut soleo plerumque. Nam si quas manus remisi cuique exegissem aut retinuissem quod cuique donavi, vicissem vel quinquaginta milia.

Your brother conducted the affair with great outcries; in sum, however, he lost not much, but from great losses it was, beyond expectation, gradually drawn back. I lost twenty thousand coins on my own account, but since I had been profusely liberal in play, as I am for the most part. For if I had exacted from each whatever stakes I remitted, or had retained what I gave to each, I would have won even fifty thousand.

Sed hoc malo; benignitas enim mea me ad caelestem gloriam efferet." Scribit ad filiam: "Misi tibi denarios ducentos quinquaginta, quos singulis convivis dederam, si vellent inter se inter cenam vel talis vel par impar ludere."

"But I prefer this; for my benignity will lift me to celestial glory." He writes to his daughter: "I have sent you 250 denarii, which I had given to each individual guest, if they should wish among themselves during dinner to play either dice or odd-and-even."

[72] In ceteris partibus vitae continentissimum constat ac sine suspicione ullius vitii. Habitavit primo iuxta Romanum Forum supra Scalas anularias, in domo quae Calvi oratoris fuerat; postea in Palatio, sed nihilo minus aedibus modicis Hortensianis, et neque laxitate neque cultu conspicuis, ut in quibus porticus breves essent Albanarum columnarum et sine marmore ullo aut insigni pavimento conclavia. Ac per annos amplius quadraginta eodem cubiculo hieme et aestate mansit, quamvis parum salubrem valitudini suae urbem hieme experiretur assidueque in urbe hiemaret.

[72] In the other parts of his life he is generally held to have been most continent and without suspicion of any vice. He dwelt at first near the Roman Forum, above the Ring-makers’ Stairs, in the house which had been that of Calvus the orator; afterwards on the Palatine, but nonetheless in the modest Hortensian house, and conspicuous neither for spaciousness nor for adornment, in that the porticoes were short, of Alban columns, and the rooms without any marble at all or noteworthy pavement. And for more than forty years he remained in the same bedchamber in winter and summer, although he found the city in winter not very healthful to his constitution and he continuously wintered in the city.

Si quando quid secreto aut sine interpellatione agere proposuisset, erat illi locus in edito singularis, quem Syracusas et τεχνύφιον vocabat; huc transibat aut in alicuius libertorum suburbanum; aeger autem in domo Maecenatis cubabat. Ex secessibus praecipue frequentavit maritima insulasque Campaniae aut proxima urbi oppida, Lanuvium, Praeneste, Tibur, ubi etiam in porticibus Herculis templi persaepe ius dixit. Ampla et operosa praetoria gravabatur.

If ever he had proposed to do anything in secret or without interruption, he had for himself a unique place on a height, which he called Syracuse and τεχνύφιον (“little workshop”); he would pass over to this, or to the suburban estate of one of his freedmen; when ill, moreover, he used to lie down in Maecenas’s house. Of retreats he especially frequented the sea-coasts and the islands of Campania, or the towns nearest to the city—Lanuvium, Praeneste, Tibur—where even in the porticoes of the temple of Hercules he very often pronounced judgment. He was burdened by spacious and labor-intensive praetoria.

Et neptis quidem suae Iuliae, profuse ab ea exstructa, etiam diruit ad solum, sua vero quamvis modica non tam statuarum tabularumque pictarum ornatu quam xystis et nemoribus excoluit rebusque vetustate ac raritate notabilibus, qualia sunt Capreis immanium beluarum ferarumque membra praegrandia, quae dicuntur gigantum ossa, et arma heroum.

And he even demolished down to the ground that of his granddaughter Julia, lavishly constructed by her; his own, though modest, he embellished not so much with the adornment of statues and painted panels as with xysti and groves, and with things notable for their antiquity and rarity—such as on Capri the very large limbs of monstrous beasts and wild animals, which are called the bones of giants, and the arms of heroes.

[73] Instrumenti eius et supellectilis parsimonia apparet etiam nunc residuis lectis atque mensis, quorum pleraque vix privatae elegantiae sint. Ne toro quidem cubuisse aiunt nisi humili et modice instrato. Veste non temere alia quam domestica usus est, ab sorore et uxore et filia neptibusque confecta; togis neque restrictis neque fusis, clavo nec lato nec angusto, calciamentis altiusculis, ut procerior quam erat videretur.

[73] The parsimony of his equipment and household furnishings appears even now from the surviving beds and tables, most of which are scarcely of private elegance. They say he did not even recline upon a couch unless it was low and modestly made up. He used no clothing readily other than domestic, fashioned by his sister and his wife and his daughter and granddaughters; his togas neither tight-drawn nor flowing, his stripe neither broad nor narrow, his footwear somewhat high, so that he might seem taller than he was.

Et forensia autem et calceos numquam non intra cubiculum habuit ad subitos repentinosque casus parata.

And both his forensic attire and his shoes he always kept within his bedchamber, prepared for sudden and unexpected contingencies.

[74] Convivabatur assidue nec umquam nisi recta, non sine magno ordinum hominumque dilectu. Valerius Messala tradit, neminem umquam libertinorum adhibitum ab eo cenae excepto Mena, sed asserto in ingenuitatem post proditam Sexti Pompei classem. Ipse scribit, invitasse se quendam, in cuius villa maneret, qui speculator suus olim fuisset.

[74] He dined continually and never except punctually, not without a great selection as to orders and persons. Valerius Messala relates that none of the freedmen was ever admitted by him to dinner, except Mena, but after the betrayal of Sextus Pompeius’s fleet he was declared of freeborn status. He himself writes that he invited a certain man, in whose villa he was staying, who had once been his scout.

Convivia nonnumquam et serius inibat et maturius relinquebat, cum convivae et cenare inciperent, prius quam ille discumberet, et permanerent digresso eo. Cenam ternis ferculis aut cum abundantissime senis praebebat, ut non nimio sumptu, ita summa comitate. Nam et ad communionem sermonis tacentis vel summissim fabulantis provocabat, et aut acroamata et histriones aut etiam triviales ex circo ludios interponebat ac frequentius aretalogos.

He sometimes entered banquets later and left earlier, with the guests beginning to dine before he reclined, and remaining when he had gone. He provided a dinner of three courses, or, when most abundant, six: thus not with excessive expense, yet with the utmost comity. For he would invite even the silent, or those chattering in a very low voice, to a sharing in conversation, and he would interpose either acroamata and actors, or even commonplace ludii from the Circus, and more frequently aretalogues.

[75] Festos et sollemnes dies profusissime, nonnumquam tantum ioculariter celebrabat. Saturnalibus, et si quando alias libuisset, modo munera dividebat, vestem et aurum et argentum, modo nummos omnis notae, etiam veteres regios ac peregrinos, interdum nihil praeter cilicia et spongias et rutabula et forpices atque alia id genus titulis obscuris et ambiguis. Solebat et inaequalissimarum rerum sortes et aversas tabularum picturas in convivio venditare incertoque casu spem mercantium vel frustrari vel explere, ita ut per singulos lectos licitatio fieret et seu iactura seu lucrum communicaretur.

[75] Festive and solemn days he celebrated most lavishly, sometimes only jocularly. At the Saturnalia, and also whenever else it pleased him, at one time he distributed gifts—clothing and gold and silver—at another, coins of every stamp, even old royal and foreign ones; sometimes nothing except haircloths and sponges and scrapers and shears and other things of that kind, with labels obscure and ambiguous. He was also wont at a banquet to auction off lots of most unequal things and panel-pictures turned face-away, and by uncertain chance either to disappoint or to fulfill the hope of the buyers, in such a way that an auction was held by each couch and either loss or profit was shared.

[76] Cibi – nam ne haec quidem omiserim – minimi erat atque vulgaris fere. Secundarium panem et pisciculos minutos et caseum bubulum manu pressum et ficos virides biferas maxime appetebat; vescebaturque et ante cenam quocumque tempore et loco, quo stomachus desiderasset. Verba ipsius ex epistulis sunt: "Nos in essedo panem et palmulas gustavimus." Et iterum: "Dum lectica ex regia domum redeo, panis unciam cum paucis acinis uvae duracinae comedi." Et rursus: "Ne Iudaeus quidem, mi Tiberi, tam diligenter sabbatis ieiunium servat quam ego hodie servavi, qui in balineo demum post horam primam noctis duas buccas manducavi prius quam ungui inciperem." Ex hac inobservantia nonnumquam vel ante initum vel post dimissum convivium solus cenitabat, cum pleno convivio nihil tangeret.

[76] As for food—for I should not omit even these—he was most sparing and generally commonplace. He especially craved second-quality bread, tiny little fishes, hand-pressed cow’s-milk cheese, and green figs of the twice-bearing kind; and he would take food even before dinner at whatever time and place his stomach desired. His own words from letters are: "We, in the essedum, tasted bread and little dates." And again: "While I return home from the palace in a litter, I ate an ounce of bread with a few berries of hard-fleshed grapes." And again: "Not even a Jew, my Tiberius, keeps the fast on the Sabbaths so diligently as I kept it today, I who in the bath, only after the first hour of the night, ate two mouthfuls before I began to be anointed." From this lack of observance he would sometimes dine alone either before a banquet was begun or after it was dismissed, when at a full banquet he would touch nothing.

[77] Vini quoque natura parcissimus erat. Non amplius ter bibere eum solitum super cenam in castris apud Mutinam, Cornelius Nepos tradit. Postea quotiens largissime se invitaret, senos sextantes non excessit, aut si excessisset, reiciebat.

[77] He was by nature most sparing of wine as well. Cornelius Nepos reports that in the camp near Mutina he was accustomed to drink no more than three times after dinner. Thereafter, whenever he treated himself most lavishly, he did not exceed six sextantes; or, if he had exceeded it, he would throw it back up.

Et maxime delectatus est Raetico neque temere interdiu bibit. Pro potione sumebat perfusum aqua frigida panem aut cucumeris frustum vel lactuculae thyrsum aut recens aridumve pomum suci vinosioris.

And he was most delighted with Raetian wine, nor did he readily drink by day. Instead of a potion he would take bread soaked with cold water, or a piece of cucumber, or a stalk of little lettuce, or fresh or dried fruit of a more vinous juice.

[78] Post cibum meridianum, ita ut vestitus calciatusque erat, retectis pedibus paulisper conquiescebat opposita ad oculos manu. A cena in lecticulam se lucubratoriam recipiebat; ibi, donec residua diurni actus aut omnia aut ex maxima parte conficeret, ad multam noctem permanebat. In lectum inde transgressus non amplius cum plurimum quam septem horas dormiebat, ac ne eas quidem continuas, sed ut in illo temporis spatio ter aut quater expergisceretur.

[78] After the midday meal, just as he was, clothed and shod, with his feet uncovered, he would rest for a little while, his hand placed over his eyes. From dinner he would withdraw to his little couch for lucubration; there, until he had completed the remaining business of the day either wholly or for the most part, he stayed on late into the night. Thence having passed over into his bed, he did not sleep, at the very most, more than seven hours—and not even these continuously—but so that in that span of time he awoke three or four times.

Si interruptum somnum reciperare, ut evenit, non posset, lectoribus aut fabulatoribus arcessitis resumebat producebatque ultra primam saepe lucem. Nec in tenebris vigilavit umquam nisi assidente aliquo. Matutina vigilia offendebatur; ac si vel officii vel sacri causa maturius vigilandum esset, ne id contra commodum faceret, in proximo cuiuscumque domesticorum cenaculo manebat.

If he could not recover interrupted sleep, as happens, he would summon readers or storytellers, and would prolong his wakefulness often beyond first light. Nor did he ever keep vigil in the dark unless someone was sitting by. Early-morning vigil annoyed him; and if either for office or for a sacred rite there had to be an earlier vigil, so as not to do it against his convenience, he would stay in the nearest upper room of whichever of his domestics.

Sic quoque saepe indigens somni, et dum per vicos deportaretur et deposita lectica inter aliquas moras condormiebat.

Thus too, often in need of sleep, he would doze both while he was being carried through the streets and, with the litter set down, during certain delays.

[79] Forma fuit eximia et per omnes aetatis gradus venustissima, quamquam et omnis lenocinii neglegens; in capite comendo tam incuriosus, ut raptim compluribus simul tonsoribus operam daret ac modo tonderet modo raderet barbam eoque ipso tempore aut legeret aliquid aut etiam scriberet. Vultu erat vel in sermone vel tacitus adeo tranquillo serenoque, ut quidam e primoribus Galliarum confessus sit inter suos, eo se inhibitum ac remollitum quo minus, ut destinarat, in transitu Alpium per simulationem conloquii propius admissus in praecipitium propelleret. Oculos habuit claros ac nitidos, quibus etiam existimari volebat inesse quiddam divini vigoris, gaudebatque, si qui sibi acrius contuenti quasi ad fulgorem solis vultum summitteret; sed in senecta sinistro minus vidit; dentes raros et exiguos et scabros; capillum leviter inflexum et subflavum; supercilia coniuncta; mediocres aures; nasum et a summo eminentiorem et ab imo deductiorem; colorem inter aquilum candidumque; staturam brevem – quam tamen Iulius Marathus libertus et a memoria eius quinque pedum et dodrantis fuisse tradit, – sed quae commoditate et aequitate membrorum occuleretur, ut non nisi ex comparatione astantis alicuius procerioris intellegi posset.

[79] His form was exceptional and, through all stages of age, most charming, although careless of every kind of allurement; in grooming the head he was so unconcerned that he would give his person in haste to several barbers at once and would now clip, now shave his beard, and at that very time would either read something or even write. His countenance, whether in speaking or in silence, was so tranquil and serene that one of the foremost men of the Gauls confessed among his own that he had been restrained and softened thereby from pushing him, as he had planned, when, in the passage of the Alps, admitted nearer under the pretense of a colloquy, he might have hurled him headlong into a precipice. He had eyes clear and shining, in which he also wished it to be thought there was a certain divine vigor, and he rejoiced if anyone, gazing on him too keenly, would lower his face as at the glare of the sun; but in old age he saw less with the left; teeth sparse and small and rough; hair lightly wavy and somewhat blond; eyebrows joined; ears middling; a nose both more prominent at the top and more drawn down at the bottom; a complexion between swarthy and fair; a short stature – which, however, Julius Marathus, his freedman and secretary for his memoranda, reports to have been five feet and three-quarters, – but one that was concealed by the comeliness and symmetry of his limbs, so that it could be understood only by comparison with some taller person standing by.

[80] Corpore traditur maculoso dispersis per pectus atque alvum genetivis notis in modum et ordinem ac numerum stellarum caelestis ursae, sed et callis quibusdam ex prurigine corporis adsiduoque et vehementi strigilis usu plurifariam concretis ad impetiginis formam. Coxendice et femore et crure sinistro non perinde valebat, ut saepe etiam inclaudicaret; sed remedio harenarum atque harundinum confirmabatur. Dextrae quoque manus digitum salutarem tam imbecillum interdum sentiebat, ut torpentem contractumque frigore vix cornei circuli supplemento scripturae admoveret.

[80] He is reported to have had a mottled body, with birthmarks scattered over his chest and belly in the pattern, order, and number of the stars of the celestial Bear; and also with certain calluses, formed in many places into the appearance of impetigo, from pruritus of the body and from the continual and vehement use of the strigil. In his left hip, thigh, and leg he was not equally strong, so that he often even limped; but he was strengthened by the remedy of sand and reeds. He sometimes felt the ring finger (the salutary finger) of his right hand so weak that, numb and contracted by cold, he could scarcely bring it to writing even with the aid of a little hoop of horn as a support.

Questus est et de vesica, cuius dolore calculis demum per urinam eiectis levabatur.

He also complained of his bladder, the pain of which was at length alleviated when the calculi were expelled through the urine.

[81] Graves et periculosas valitudines per omnem vitam aliquot expertus est; praecipue Cantabria domita, cum etiam destillationibus iocinere vitiato ad desperationem redactus contrariam et ancipitem rationem medendi necessario subiit; quia calida fomenta non proderant, frigidis curari coactus auctore Antonio Musa. Quasdam et anniversarias ac tempore certo recurrentes experiebatur; nam sub natalem suum plerumque languebat; et initio veris praecordiorum inflatione temptabatur, austrinis autem tempestatibus gravedine. Quare quassato corpore neque frigora neque aestus facile tolerabat.

[81] He experienced several grave and perilous illnesses throughout his whole life; especially when Cantabria had been subdued, when, with discharges and his liver impaired, reduced to desperation, he of necessity underwent a contrary and hazardous method of treatment; because hot poultices did no good, he was compelled to be treated with cold, on the authority of Antonius Musa. He also experienced certain annual maladies recurring at a fixed season; for about his birthday he was for the most part languid; and at the beginning of spring he was assailed by an inflation of the precordia, but in southerly weather by catarrh. Therefore, with his body shaken, he did not easily tolerate either colds or heats.

[82] Hieme quaternis cum pingui toga tunicis et subucula et thorace laneo et feminalibus et tibialibus muniebatur, aestate apertis cubiculi foribus, ac saepe in peristylo saliente aqua atque etiam ventilante aliquo cubabat. Solis vero ne hiberni quidem patiens, domi quoque non nisi petasatus sub divo spatiabatur. Itinera lectica et noctibus fere, eaque lenta ac minuta faciebat, ut Praeneste vel Tibur biduo procederet; ac si quo pervenire mari posset, potius navigabat.

[82] In winter he was fortified with four tunics, a thick toga, an undershirt (subucula), a woolen thorax, and feminalia and tibialia; in summer, with the doors of his bedroom open, he often slept in the peristyle with water splashing and even with someone fanning him. Of the sun, indeed, he could not endure even the winter sun; at home too he would stroll under the open sky only wearing a petasus. He made journeys by litter and mostly at night, and those slow and in short stages, so that he would reach Praeneste or Tibur in two days; and if he could get to any place by sea, he preferred to sail.

Verum tantam infirmitatem magna cura tuebatur, in primis lavandi raritate (unguebatur enim saepius). Aut sudabat ad flammam, deinde perfundebatur egelida aqua vel sole multo tepefacta; aut quotiens nervorum causa marinis albulisque calidis utendum esset, contentus hoc erat ut insidens ligneo solio, quod ipse Hispanico verbo duretam vocabat, manus ac pedes alternis iactaret.

However, he safeguarded so great a frailty with great care, chiefly by the rarity of bathing (for he was anointed more often). Either he would sweat by the flame, then be drenched with tepid water or with water much warmed by the sun; or, whenever for the sake of his nerves he had to use marine baths and the hot Albulae waters, he was content with this: that, sitting on a wooden seat, which he himself by the Spanish word called “dureta,” he would toss his hands and feet by turns.

[83] Exercitationes campestres equorum et armorum statim post civilia bella omisit et ad pilam primo folliculumque transiit, mox nihil aliud quam vectabatur et deambulabat, ita ut in extremis spatiis, subsultim decurreret segestria vel lodicula involutus. Animi laxandi causa modo piscabatur hamo, modo talis aut ocellatis nucibusque ludebat cum pueris minutis, quos facie et garrulitate amabilis undique conquirebat, praecipue Mauros et Syros. Nam pumilos atque distortos et omnis generis eiusdem ut ludibria naturae malique ominis abhorrebat.

[83] He abandoned the field exercises of horses and arms immediately after the civil wars and turned at first to ball-play and the bladder-ball, soon doing nothing else than riding and strolling, such that, in the last stretches, he would run down with little hops, wrapped in a seat-cover (segestria) or a little blanket (lodicula). For the relaxation of his mind he would now fish with a hook, now play with dice or with eye-spotted nuts, together with small boys, whom, charming for their looks and garrulity, he would seek out from everywhere, especially Moors and Syrians. For dwarfs and the misshapen, and all of that sort, as mockeries of nature and of evil omen, he abhorred.

[84] Eloquentiam studiaque liberalia ab aetate prima et cupide et laboriosissime exercuit. Mutinensi bello in tanta mole rerum et legisse et scripsisse et declamasse cotidie traditur. Nam deinceps neque in senatu neque apud populum neque apud milites locutus est umquam nisi meditata et composita oratione, quamvis non deficeretur ad subita extemporali facultate.

[84] He exercised eloquence and the liberal studies from his earliest age both eagerly and with the utmost labor. In the Mutinensian war, amid so great a mass of affairs, he is reported to have read, written, and declaimed every day. For thereafter he never spoke either in the senate or before the people or before the soldiers except with a premeditated and composed oration, although he did not fail in an extemporal faculty for sudden matters.

Ac ne periculum memoriae adiret aut in ediscendo tempus absumeret, instituit recitare omnia. Sermones quoque cum singulis atque etiam cum Livia sua graviores non nisi scriptos et e libello habebat, ne plus minusve loqueretur ex tempore. Pronuntiabat dulci et proprio quodam oris sono, dabatque assidue phonasco operam; sed non numquam, infirmatis faucibus, praeconis voce ad populum concionatus est.

And, lest he incur peril to his memory or consume time in learning by heart, he instituted the practice of reciting everything. He also held conversations with individuals, and even with his own Livia, on weightier matters only when written and from a little book, so that he might not speak extemporaneously either more or less than intended. He delivered with a sweet and somewhat distinctive tone of voice, and he applied himself assiduously to a voice-coach; but sometimes, when his throat was weakened, he addressed the people with a herald’s voice.

[85] Multa varii generis prosa oratione composuit, ex quibus nonnulla in coetu familiarium velut in auditorio recitavit, sicut "Rescripta Bruto de Catone," quae volumina cum iam senior ex magna parte legisset, fatigatus Tiberio tradidit perlegenda; item "Hortationes ad philosophiam," et aliqua "De vita sua," quam tredecim libris Cantabrico tenus bello nec ultra exposuit. Poetica summatim attigit. Unus liber exstat scriptus ab eo hexametris versibus, cuius et argumentum et titulus est "Sicilia"; exstat alter aeque modicus "Epigrammatum," quae fere tempore balinei meditabatur.

[85] He composed many things of various kinds in prose, of which he recited some in a gathering of intimates as if in an auditorium, such as “Rescripts to Brutus about Cato,” volumes of which, when now older he had read a great part, wearied, he handed over to Tiberius to be read through; likewise “Exhortations to Philosophy,” and certain “On His Own Life,” which in thirteen books he set forth as far as the Cantabrian war and no further. He touched upon poetry summarily. One book exists written by him in hexameter verses, whose subject-matter and title is “Sicily”; there exists another, equally slight, “Epigrams,” which for the most part he would be composing in his mind at bath-time.

Nam tragoediam magno impetu exorsus, non succedenti stilo, abolevit quaerentibusque amicis, quidnam Aiax ageret, respondit, Aiacem suum in spongeam incubuisse.

For he began a tragedy with great impetus; when the style did not succeed, he abolished it; and when friends asked what Ajax was doing, he replied that his Ajax had fallen upon a sponge.

[86] Genus eloquendi secutus est elegans et temperatum, vitatis sententiarum ineptiis atque concinnitate et "reconditorum verborum," ut ipse dicit, "fetoribus"; praecipuamque curam duxit sensum animi quam apertissime exprimere. Quod quo facilius efficeret aut necubi lectorem vel auditorem obturbaret ac moraretur, neque praepositiones urbibus addere neque coniunctiones saepius iterare dubitavit, quae detractae afferunt aliquid obscuritatis, etsi gratiam augent. Cacozelos et antiquarios, ut diverso genere vitiosos, pari fastidio sprevit, exagitabatque nonnumquam; in primis Maecenatem suum, cuius "myrobrechis," ut ait, "cincinnos" usque quaque persequitur et imitando per iocum irridet.

[86] He followed a genus of eloquence elegant and temperate, avoiding the inanities of sententiae and concinnity and the “fetors,” as he himself says, of “recondite words”; and he took as his chief care to express the sense of his mind as most openly as possible. In order to accomplish this more easily, and lest anywhere he disturb or delay the reader or hearer, he did not hesitate to omit adding prepositions to city-names and to avoid repeating conjunctions too often—things which, when subtracted, bring a certain obscurity, although they increase grace. He spurned with equal disdain the cacozelei and the antiquarians, as faulty in opposite ways, and he would sometimes attack them; especially his Maecenas, whose “myrobrechis” “cincinnos” he, as he says, pursues everywhere and by imitating ridicules in jest.

Sed nec Tiberio parcit et exoletas interdum et reconditas voces aucupanti. M. quidem Antonium ut insanum increpat, quasi ea scribentem, quae mirentur potius homines quam intellegant; deinde ludens malum et inconstans in eligendo genere dicendi iudicium eius, addit haec: "Tuque dubitas, Cimberne Annius an Veranius Flaccus imitandi sint tibi, ita ut verbis, quae Crispus Sallustius excerpsit ex Originibus Catonis, utaris? an potius Asiaticorum oratorum inanis sententiis verborum volubilitas in nostrum sermonem transferenda?" Et quadam epistula Agrippinae neptis ingenium conlaudans, "sed opus est," inquit, "dare te operam, ne moleste scribas et loquaris."

But he does not spare Tiberius either, who sometimes hunts after obsolete and recondite words. He even rebukes M. Antonius as insane, as if writing things that men would marvel at rather than understand; then, jesting at the bad and inconstant judgment he shows in choosing a manner of speaking, he adds these words: "And do you hesitate whether Cimber Annius or Veranius Flaccus ought to be imitated by you, so that you use the words which Crispus Sallustius excerpted from the Origines of Cato? or rather should the volubility of words of the Asiatic orators, with empty sentiments, be transferred into our discourse?" And in a certain letter, highly praising the talent of his granddaughter Agrippina, "but it is needful," he says, "that you take pains not to write and speak laboriously."

[87] Cotidiano sermone quaedam frequentius et notabiliter usurpasse eum, litterae ipsius autographae ostentant, in quibus identidem, cum aliquos numquam soluturos significare vult, "ad Kal. Graecas soluturos" ait; et cum hortatur ferenda esse praesentia, qualiacumque sint: "contenti simus hoc Catone"; et ad exprimendam festinatae rei velocitatem: "celerius quam asparagi cocuntur"; ponit assidue et pro stulto "baceolum" et pro pullo "pulleiaceum" et pro cerrito "vacerrosum" et "vapide" se habere pro male et "betizare" pro languere, quod vulgo "lachanizare" dicitur; item "simus" pro sumus et "domos" genetivo casu singulari pro domus. Nec umquam aliter haec duo, ne quis mendam magis quam consuetudinem putet.

[87] His own autograph letters display that in everyday speech he more frequently and noticeably employed certain turns; in them, repeatedly, when he wishes to signify that some will never pay, he says “they will pay at the Greek Kalends”; and when he exhorts that present circumstances, whatever they are, must be borne: “let us be content with this Cato”; and to express the speed of a hastened matter: “quicker than asparagus is cooked.” He consistently uses “baceolus” for “stupid,” and “pulleiaceus” for “chicken,” and “vacerrosus” for “crack-brained,” and “to be ‘vapidly’” for “to be ill/off,” and “betizare” for “to be languid,” which in the vulgar is called “lachanizare”; likewise “simus” for sumus and “domos” in the singular genitive case for domus. And never otherwise in these two, lest anyone think it a mistake rather than a usage.

Notavi et in chirographo eius illa praecipue: non dividit verba nec ab extrema parte versuum abundantis litteras in alterum transfert, sed ibidem statim subicit circumducitque.

I have noted in his handwriting this especially: he does not divide words, nor from the extreme end of lines transfer the letters that overflow into another, but in the same place he immediately subjoins them and wraps them around.

[88] Orthographiam, id est formulam rationemque scribendi a grammaticis institutam, non adeo custodit ac videtur eorum potius sequi opinionem, qui perinde scribendum ac loquamur existiment. Nam quod saepe non litteras modo sed syllabas aut permutat aut praeterit, communis hominum error est. Nec ego id notarem, nisi mihi mirum videretur tradidisse aliquos, legato eum consulari successorem dedisse ut rudi et indocto, cuius manu "ixi" pro "ipsi" scriptum animadverterit.

[88] Orthography, that is, the formula and method of writing established by the grammarians, he does not observe to such a degree, and he seems rather to follow the opinion of those who think one should write just as we speak. For the fact that he often not letters only but syllables either transposes or omits is a common human error. Nor would I note this, unless it seemed strange to me that some have handed down that he gave a successor to a consular legate as to a rude and unlearned man, because he had observed in his hand “ixi” written instead of “ipsi.”

Quotiens autem per notas scribit, B pro A, C pro B ac deinceps eadem ratione sequentis litteras ponit; pro X autem duplex A.

Whenever he writes by notes (shorthand), he sets B in place of A, C in place of B, and, in the same manner, the subsequent letters; for X, however, a double A.

[89] Ne Graecarum quidem disciplinarum leviore studio tenebatur. In quibus et ipsis praestabat largiter magistro dicendi usus Apollodoro Pergameno, quem iam grandem natu Apolloniam quoque secum ab urbe iuvenis adhuc eduxerat, deinde eruditione etiam varia repletus per Arei philosophi filiorumque eius Dionysi et Nicanoris contubernium; non tamen ut aut loqueretur expedite aut componere aliquid auderet; nam et si quid res exigeret, Latine formabat vertendumque alii dabat. Sed plane poematum quoque non imperitus, delectabatur etiam comoedia veteri et saepe eam exhibuit spectaculis publicis.

[89] He was not held by a lighter zeal even for the Greek disciplines. In these too he excelled abundantly through practice under the teacher of speaking, Apollodorus the Pergamene, whom, already advanced in age, he had even led out with him from the city to Apollonia while still a youth; then he was also filled with varied erudition through the companionship of the philosopher Areus and his sons Dionysius and Nicanor; not, however, to the point that he either spoke fluently or dared to compose anything; for even if the matter required something, he would shape it in Latin and give it to another to be translated. But clearly he was not unskilled in poetry as well; he also took delight in Old Comedy and often exhibited it at public spectacles.

In evolvendis utriusque linguae auctoribus nihil aeque sectabatur, quam praecepta et exempla publice vel privatim salubria, eaque ad verbum excerpta aut ad domesticos aut ad exercituum provinciarumque rectores aut ad urbis magistratus plerumque mittebat, prout quique monitione indigerent. Etiam libros totos et senatui recitavit et populo notos per edictum saepe fecit, ut orationes Q. Metelli "de prole augenda" et Rutili "de modo aedificiorum," quo magis persuaderet utramque rem non a se primo animadversam, sed antiquis iam tunc curae fuisse. Ingenia saeculi sui omnibus modis fovit; recitantis et benigne et patienter audiit, nec tantum carmina et historias, sed et orationes et dialogos.

In unrolling the authors of both languages, he pursued nothing so much as precepts and examples salutary both publicly and privately; and these, excerpted verbatim, he for the most part sent either to his domestics or to the leaders of the armies and the provinces or to the magistrates of the city, according as each stood in need of admonition. He even both recited whole books to the senate and often made them known to the people by edict, such as the orations of Q. Metellus “On Increasing Progeny” and of Rutilius “On the Limit of Buildings,” in order the more to persuade that each matter had not been first observed by himself, but had already then been a concern to the ancients. He fostered the talents of his age in every way; he listened to those reciting both kindly and patiently, and not only poems and histories, but also orations and dialogues.

Componi tamen aliquid de se nisi et serio et a praestantissimis offendebatur, admonebatque praetores ne paterentur nomen suum commissionibus obsolefieri.

Yet he was offended that anything should be composed about himself unless both seriously and by the most preeminent men, and he admonished the praetors not to allow his name to be made obsolete by afterpieces.

[90] Circa religiones talem accepimus. Tonitrua et fulgura paulo infirmius expavescebat, ut semper et ubique pellem vituli marini circumferret pro remedio, atque ad omnem maioris tempestatis suspicionem in abditum et concamaratum locum se reciperet, consternatus olim per nocturnum iter transcursu fulguris, ut praediximus.

[90] Concerning religious observances we have received this: he was somewhat faint‑heartedly terrified at thunder and lightning, so that he always and everywhere carried about the skin of a sea‑calf as a remedy, and at any suspicion of a greater storm would withdraw into a secluded and vaulted place, having once been panic‑stricken, on a night journey, by the sweep of a lightning‑flash, as we have said before.

[91] Somnia neque sua neque aliena de se neglegebat. Philippensi acie quamvis statuisset non egredi tabernaculo propter valitudinem, egressus est tamen amici somnio monitus; cessitque res prospere, quando captis castris lectica eius, quasi ibi cubans remansisset, concursu hostium confossa atque lacerata est. Ipse per omne ver plurima et formidulosissima et vana et irrita videbat, reliquo tempore rariora et minus vana.

[91] He did not neglect dreams, neither his own nor those of others about himself. At the battle-line of Philippi, although he had determined not to go out from his tent on account of his health, yet he went out, admonished by a friend’s dream; and the matter turned out prosperously, since, when the camp was captured, his litter, as if he had remained there lying, was pierced and lacerated by the onrush of the enemy. He himself throughout the whole spring saw very many dreams—most formidable, and vain and ineffectual; in the remaining time, they were rarer and less vain.

Cum dedicatam in Capitolio aedem Tonanti Iovi assidue frequentaret, somniavit, queri Capitolinum Iovem cultores sibi abduci, seque respondisse, Tonantem pro ianitore ei appositum; ideoque mox tintinnabulis fastigium aedis redimiit, quod ea fere ianuis dependebant. Ex nocturno visu etiam stipem quotannis die certo emendicabat a populo cavam manum asses porrigentibus praebens.

When he assiduously frequented the temple dedicated on the Capitol to Jupiter the Thunderer, he dreamed that Capitoline Jupiter complained that his worshipers were being drawn away from him, and that he had replied that the Thunderer had been set up for him as a doorkeeper (a janitor); and therefore he soon wreathed the gable of the temple with little bells, because these generally hung from doors. From a nocturnal vision as well he used each year on a fixed day to beg alms from the people, offering his hollowed hand to those proffering asses.

[92] Auspicia et omina quaedam pro certissimis observabat: si mane sibi calceus perperam ac sinister pro dextro induceretur, ut dirum; si terra marive ingrediente se longinquam profectionem forte rorasset, ut laetum maturique et prosperi reditus. Sed et ostentis praecipue movebatur. Enatam inter iuncturas lapidum ante domum suam palmam in compluvium deorum Penatium transtulit, utque coalesceret magno opere curavit.

[92] He observed certain auspices and omens as most sure: if in the morning his shoe was wrongly put on and the left in place of the right, as dire; if, as he was setting out on a distant expedition by land or by sea, it happened to sprinkle him with dew, as joyful and an omen of a timely and prosperous return. But he was especially moved by prodigies. A palm that had sprung up between the joints of the paving-stones before his house he transferred into the compluvium of the Penates, and he took great pains that it might take firm hold.

Apud insulam Capreas veterrimae ilicis demissos iam ad terram languentisque ramos convaluisse adventu suo, adeo laetatus est, ut eas cum re publica Neapolitanorum permutaverit, Aenaria data. Observabat et dies quosdam, ne aut postridie nundinas quoquam proficisceretur aut Nonis quicquam rei seriae incoharet; nihil in hoc quidem aliud devitans, ut ad Tiberium scribit, quam δυσφημίαν nominis.

At the island of Capri he was so delighted that, on his arrival, the drooping branches of a very old holm-oak, now sunk down to the ground and languishing, had recovered, that he exchanged it with the commonwealth of the Neapolitans, Aenaria given in return. He also observed certain days, so that he would not set out anywhere on the day after market-day nor begin any matter of serious business on the Nones; avoiding in this, as he writes to Tiberius, nothing other than the ill-omen of the name.

[93] Peregrinarum caerimoniarum sicut veteres ac praeceptas reverentissime coluit, ita ceteras contemptui habuit. Namque Athenis initiatus, cum postea Romae pro tribunali de privilegio sacerdotum Atticae Cereris cognosceret et quaedam secretiora proponerentur, dimisso consilio et corona circum stantium solus audiit disceptantes. At contra non modo in peragranda Aegypto paulo deflectere ad visendum Apin supersedit, sed et Gaium nepotem, quod Iudaeam praetervehens apud Hierosolyma non supplicasset, conlaudavit.

[93] As for foreign ceremonies, just as he most reverently honored the ancient and prescribed, so he held the others in contempt. For having been initiated at Athens, when later at Rome he took cognizance from the tribunal concerning the privilege of the priests of Attic Ceres and certain more secret matters were brought forward, after dismissing his council and the ring of bystanders he alone heard the disputants. But on the other hand, not only, while traversing Egypt, did he refrain from turning aside a little to view Apis, but he even commended his grandson Gaius because, as he was passing by Judaea, he had not made supplication at Jerusalem.

[94] Et quoniam ad haec ventum est, non ab re fuerit subtexere, quae ei prius quam nasceretur et ipso natali die ac deinceps evenerint, quibus futura magnitudo eius et perpetua felicitas sperari animadvertique posset. Velitris antiquitus tacta de caelo parte muri, responsum est eius oppidi civem quandoque rerum potiturum; qua fiducia Veliterni et tunc statim et postea saepius paene ad exitium sui cum populo Romano belligeraverant; sero tandem documentis apparuit ostentum illud Augusti potentiam portendisse. Auctor est Iulius Marathus, ante paucos quam nasceretur menses prodigium Romae factum publice, quo denuntiabatur, regem populo Romano naturam parturire; senatum exterritum censuisse, ne quis illo anno genitus educaretur; eos qui gravidas uxores haberent, quod ad se quisque spem traheret, curasse ne senatus consultum ad aerarium deferretur.

[94] And since we have come to these matters, it will not be out of place to weave in what befell him before he was born and on his very birthday and thereafter, from which his future greatness and perpetual felicity could be hoped for and discerned. At Velitrae, when in antiquity a part of the wall was struck from the sky, the response was that a citizen of that town would someday become master of affairs; with this confidence the people of Velitrae both then immediately and afterwards repeatedly waged war with the Roman people almost to their own ruin; at length, late, by proofs it appeared that that portent had portended the power of Augustus. Julius Marathus is authority that a few months before he was born a prodigy occurred at Rome publicly, whereby it was announced that nature was in labor to bring forth a king for the Roman people; the senate, terrified, decreed that no one born in that year should be reared; those who had pregnant wives, because each drew the hope to himself, took care that the senatorial decree not be carried to the treasury (archives).

In Asclepiadis Mendetis Theologumenon libris lego, Atiam, cum ad sollemne Apollinis sacrum media nocte venisset, posita in templo lectica, dum ceterae matronae dormirent, obdormisse; draconem repente irrepsisse ad eam pauloque post egressum; illam expergefactam quasi a concubitu mariti purificasse se; et statim in corpore eius exstitisse maculam velut picti draconis nec potuisse umquam exigi, adeo ut mox publicis balineis perpetuo abstinuerit; Augustum natum mense decimo et ob hoc Apollinis filium existimatum. Eadem Atia prius quam pareret somniavit, intestina sua ferri ad sidera explicarique per omnem terrarum et caeli ambitum. Somniavit et pater Octavius utero Atiae iubar solis exortum.

In the books of Asclepiades of Mendes, Theologumenon, I read that Atia, when she had come at midnight to the solemn sacred rite of Apollo, her litter having been set down in the temple, while the other matrons slept, fell asleep; that a dragon suddenly crept in to her and a little after went out; that she, awakened, purified herself as if from intercourse with her husband; and that immediately there appeared on her body a mark like a painted dragon, nor could it ever be removed, to such a degree that soon she perpetually abstained from the public baths; Augustus was born in the tenth month and on this account was deemed a son of Apollo. The same Atia, before she gave birth, dreamed that her entrails were carried to the stars and were unfurled through the whole circuit of earth and sky. And his father Octavius also dreamed that from Atia’s womb a radiance of the sun arose.

Quo natus est die, cum de Catilinae coniuratione ageretur in curia et Octavius ob uxoris puerperium serius affuisset, nota ac vulgata res est P. Nigidium, comperta morae causa, ut horam quoque partus acceperit, affirmasse dominum terrarum orbi natum. Octavio postea, cum per secreta Thraciae exercitum duceret, in Liberi patris luco barbara caerimonia de filio consulenti, idem affirmatum est a sacerdotibus, quod infuso super altaria mero tantum flammae emicuisset, ut supergressa fastigium templi ad caelum usque ferretur, unique omnino Magno Alexandro apud easdem aras sacrificanti simile provenisset ostentum. Atque etiam sequenti statim nocte videre visus est filium mortali specie ampliorem, cum fulmine et sceptro exuviisque Iovis Optimi Maximi ac radiata corona, super laureatum currum, bis senis equis candore eximio trahentibus.

On the day he was born, when the matter of Catiline’s conspiracy was being dealt with in the Curia and Octavius, on account of his wife’s childbirth, had arrived later, it is a well-known and widely published thing that Publius Nigidius, once the cause of the delay was discovered and he had also taken down the very hour of the birth, affirmed that a ruler of the world had been born. Later to Octavius, when he was leading his army through the secret places of Thrace and, in the grove of Father Liber, by a barbarian ceremony was consulting about his son, the same was affirmed by the priests, because, when neat wine was poured upon the altars, so great a flame leapt up that, overpassing the pediment of the temple, it was carried up to the sky, and that to none other than Alexander the Great, sacrificing at those same altars, had a like portent occurred. And even on the very next night he seemed to see his son greater than mortal in appearance, with a thunderbolt and scepter and the spoils of Jupiter Best and Greatest and a radiate crown, upon a laureate chariot, drawn by twice six horses of exceptional whiteness.

Infans adhuc, ut scriptum apud C. Drusum exstat, repositus vespere in cunas a nutricula loco plano, postera luce non comparuit, diuque quaesitus tandem in altissima turri repertus est iacens contra solis exortum. Cum primum fari coepisset, in avito suburbano obstrepentis forte ranas silere iussit, atque ex eo negantur ibi ranae coaxare. Ad quartum lapidem Campanae viae in nemore prandenti ex inproviso aquila panem ei e manu rapuit et, cum altissime evolasset, rursus ex inproviso leniter delapsa reddidit.

Still an infant, as it stands written with C. Drusus, when in the evening he had been set back into his cradle by the nurse on level ground, he did not appear the next morning, and after being long sought, at last he was found in the loftiest tower, lying toward the sunrise. When he first began to speak, in the ancestral suburban estate he ordered the frogs, chancing to make a din, to be silent, and from that time they are said not to croak there. At the fourth milestone of the Campanian Way, while lunching in a grove, unexpectedly an eagle snatched the bread from his hand and, when it had flown very high, again unexpectedly, gliding down gently, gave it back.

Q. Catulus post dedicatum Capitolium duabus continuis noctibus somniavit: prima, Iovem Optimum Maximum e praetextatis compluribus circum aram ludentibus unum secrevisse atque in eius sinum signum rei publicae quam manu gestaret reposuisse; at insequenti, animadvertisse se in gremio Capitolini Iovis eundem puerum, quem cum detrahi iussisset, prohibitum monitu dei, tanquam is ad tutelam rei publicae educaretur; ac die proximo obvium sibi Augustum, cum incognitum alias haberet, non sine admiratione contuitus, simillimum dixit puero, de quo somniasset. Quidam prius somnium Catuli aliter exponunt, quasi Iuppiter compluribus praetextatis tutorem a se poscentibus, unum ex eis demonstrasset, ad quem omnia desideria sua referrent, eiusque osculum delibatum digitis ad os suum rettulisset. M. Cicero C. Caesarem in Capitolium prosecutus, somnium pristinae noctis familiaribus forte narrabat: puerum facie liberali, demissum e caelo catena aurea, ad fores Capitoli constitisse eique Iovem flagellum tradidisse; deinde repente Augusto viso, quem ignotum plerisque adhuc avunculus Caesar ad sacrificandum acciverat, affirmavit ipsum esse, cuius imago secundum quietem sibi obversata sit.

Q. Catulus, after the Capitol had been dedicated, dreamed on two consecutive nights: on the first, that Jupiter Best and Greatest, from among several praetexta-clad youths playing around the altar, had singled one out and had placed in his lap the sign of the Republic which he was carrying in his hand; but on the following night, that he noticed the same boy in the bosom of Capitoline Jupiter, and when he had ordered him to be taken down, he was forbidden by the god’s monition, as though he were being brought up for the tutelage of the Republic; and on the next day, meeting Augustus, although he otherwise had him unknown, having gazed upon him not without admiration, he said he was most like the boy of whom he had dreamed. Some set forth Catulus’s earlier dream differently, as if Jupiter, when several praetexta-clad youths were asking from him a guardian, had pointed out one of them to whom they should refer all their desires, and that, having delibated his kiss with his fingers, he had brought it back to his own mouth. M. Cicero, having accompanied C. Caesar into the Capitol, chanced to be recounting to his intimates the dream of the previous night: that a boy of noble countenance, let down from heaven by a golden chain, had stood at the doors of the Capitol, and that Jupiter had handed him a scourge; then, when Augustus suddenly appeared—whom his uncle Caesar had summoned to sacrifice, still unknown to most—he affirmed that this was the very one whose image had presented itself to him in sleep.

Sumenti virilem togam tunica lati clavi, resuta ex utraque parte, ad pedes decidit. Fuerunt qui interpretarentur, non aliud significare, quam ut is ordo cuius insigne id esset quandoque ei subiceretur. Apud Mundam Divus Iulius, castris locum capiens cum silvam caederet, arborem palmae repertam conservari ut omen victoriae iussit; ex ea continuo enata suboles adeo in paucis diebus adolevit, ut non aequiperaret modo matricem, verum et obtegeret frequentareturque columbarum nidis, quamvis id avium genus duram et asperam frondem maxime vitet.

While he was putting on the manly toga, his tunic of the broad stripe, unsewn on both sides, fell down to his feet. There were those who interpreted this as signifying nothing else than that the order whose insignia that was would someday be subjected to him. At Munda, the Divine Julius, when, in taking a place for the camp, he was cutting down a wood, ordered a palm-tree that had been found to be preserved as an omen of victory; from it there immediately sprang a shoot which in a few days grew to such a degree that it not only matched the mother, but even covered it, and it was frequented by nests of doves, although that kind of birds especially shuns hard and rough foliage.

Illo et praecipue ostento motum Caesarem ferunt, ne quem alium sibi succedere quam sororis nepotem vellet. In secessu Apolloniae Theogenis mathematici pergulam comite Agrippa ascenderat; cum Agrippae, qui prior consulebat, magna et paene incredibilia praedicerentur, reticere ipse genituram suam nec velle edere perseverabat, metu ac pudore ne minor inveniretur. Qua tamen post multas adhortationes vix et cunctanter edita, exilivit Theogenes adoravitque eum.

They report that Caesar was moved by that, and especially by that portent, to wish that no one other than his sister’s grandson should succeed him. During his seclusion at Apollonia he had ascended the upper room of Theogenes the mathematician (astrologer), with Agrippa as companion; when great and almost incredible things were being foretold for Agrippa, who consulted first, he himself persisted in keeping his geniture silent and not wishing to publish it, from fear and modesty lest it be found inferior. Yet when this, after many exhortations, was at last scarcely and hesitantly disclosed, Theogenes leapt up and adored him.

Tantam mox fiduciam fati Augustus habuit, ut thema suum vulgaverit nummumque argenteum nota sideris Capricorni, quo natus est, percusserit.

Augustus soon had such confidence in fate that he made his horoscope public and struck a silver coin with the mark of the star-sign Capricorn, under which he was born.

[95] Post necem Caesaris reverso ab Apollonia et ingrediente eo urbem, repente liquido ac puro sereno circulus ad speciem caelestis arcus orbem solis ambiit, ac subinde Iuliae Caesaris filiae monimentum fulmine ictum est. Primo autem consulatu et augurium capienti duodecim se vultures ut Romulo ostenderunt, et immolanti omnium victimarum iocinera replicata intrinsecus ab ima fibra paruerunt, nemine peritorum aliter coniectante quam laeta per haec et magna portendi.

[95] After the slaying of Caesar, as he returned from Apollonia and was entering the city, suddenly, in a limpid and pure serene sky, a circle in the likeness of a celestial arc encompassed the orb of the sun, and shortly thereafter the monument of Julia, daughter of Caesar, was struck by lightning. Moreover, in his first consulship, as he was taking the augury, twelve vultures showed themselves to him, as to Romulus; and as he was sacrificing, the livers of all the victims appeared folded back inward from the lowest fiber, with none of the experts conjecturing otherwise than that by these signs joyful and great things were being portended.

[96] Quin et bellorum omnium eventus ante praesensit. Contractis ad Bononiam triumvirorum copiis, aquila tentorio eius supersedens duos corvos hinc et inde infestantis afflixit et ad terram dedit; notante omni exercitu, futuram quandoque inter collegas discordiam talem qualis secuta est, et exitum praesagiente. Philippis Thessalus quidam de futura victoria nuntiavit auctore Divo Caesare, cuius sibi species itinere avio occurrisset.

[96] Indeed, he even anticipated in advance the outcomes of all the wars. When the forces of the triumvirs had been mustered at Bononia, an eagle, perching above his tent, struck down two crows attacking from here and there and cast them to the ground; the whole army noting that there would someday be among the colleagues a discord such as followed, and presaging the outcome. At Philippi a certain Thessalian announced the future victory on the authority of the Deified Caesar, whose apparition had met him on a byway off the road.

Circa Perusiam, sacrificio non litanti cum augeri hostias imperasset, ac subita eruptione hostes omnem rei divinae apparatum abstulissent, constitit inter haruspices, quae periculosa et adversa sacrificanti denuntiata essent, cuncta in ipsos recasura qui exta haberent; neque aliter evenit. Pridie quam Siciliensem pugnam classe committeret, deambulanti in litore piscis e mari exsilivit et ad pedes iacuit. Apud Actium descendenti in aciem asellus cum asinario occurrit, homini Eutychus, bestiae Nicon erat nomen; utriusque simulacrum aeneum victor posuit in templo, in quod castrorum suorum locum vertit.

Around Perusia, when the sacrifice did not “litate,” and he had ordered the victims to be increased, and the enemy by a sudden sally had carried off all the apparatus of the divine rite, it was agreed among the haruspices that whatever perilous and adverse things had been denounced to the sacrificer would all recoil upon those who had possession of the entrails; nor did it turn out otherwise. The day before he joined battle off Sicily with the fleet, as he was strolling on the shore, a fish leapt from the sea and lay at his feet. At Actium, as he was going down into the battle-line, a little ass with its ass-driver met him—the man’s name was Eutychus, the beast’s Nicon; as victor he set up a bronze image of both in the temple, into which he converted the site of his camp.

[97] Mors quoque eius, de qua dehinc dicam, divinitasque post mortem evidentissimis ostentis praecognita est. Cum lustrum in campo Martio magna populi frequentia conderet, aquila eum saepius circumvolavit transgressaque in vicinam aedem super nomen Agrippae ad primam litteram sedit; quo animadverso vota, quae in proximum lustrum suscipi mos est, collegam suum Tiberium nuncupare iussit; nam se, quamquam conscriptis paratisque iam tabulis, negavit suscepturum quae non esset soluturus. Sub idem tempus ictu fulminis ex inscriptione statuae eius prima nominis littera effluxit; responsum est, centum solos dies posthac victurum, quem numerum C littera notaret, futurumque ut inter deos referretur, quod aesar, id est reliqua pars e Caesaris nomine, Etrusca lingua deus vocaretur.

[97] His death too, of which I shall speak hereafter, and his divinity after death were foreknown by most evident portents. When he was concluding the lustrum in the Campus Martius with a great throng of people, an eagle circled him repeatedly and, crossing over into the neighboring temple, perched above the name of Agrippa at the first letter; noticing this, he ordered that the vows, which it is the custom to undertake for the next lustrum, be proclaimed for his colleague Tiberius; for he said that he himself, although the tablets had already been drawn up and prepared, would not assume vows which he was not going to discharge. About the same time, by a stroke of lightning, the first letter of his name fell out from the inscription of his statue; the response was that he would live only one hundred days thereafter, which number the letter C marked, and that he would be enrolled among the gods, because aesar—that is, the remaining part from the name “Caesar”—in the Etruscan language is called “god.”

Tiberium igitur in Illyricum dimissurus et Beneventum usque prosecuturus, cum interpellatores aliis atque aliis causis in iure dicendo detinerent, exclamavit, quod et ipsum mox inter omina relatum est, non, si omnia morarentur, amplius se posthac Romae futurum; atque itinere incohato Asturam perrexit, et inde praeter consuetudinem de nocte ad occasionem aurae evectus, causam valitudinis contraxit ex profluvio alvi.

Therefore, about to send Tiberius to Illyricum and to accompany him as far as Beneventum, when interpellators with one cause and another were detaining him in pronouncing judgment in law, he exclaimed—something soon afterward entered among the omens—that, if everything kept causing delays, he would no longer hereafter be in Rome; and with the journey begun he proceeded to Astura, and from there, contrary to his custom, by night, being carried out to seize an opportunity of breeze, he contracted the cause of his ill-health from a flux of the bowels.

[98] Tunc Campaniae ora proximisque insulis circuitis, Caprearum quoque secessui quadriduum impendit, remississimo ad otium et ad omnem comitatem animo. Forte Puteolanum sinum praetervehenti vectores nautaeque de navi Alexandrina, quae tantum quod appulerat, candidati coronatique et tura libantes fausta omina et eximias laudes congesserant, per illum se vivere, per illum navigare, libertate atque fortunis per illum frui. Qua re admodum exhilaratus quadragenos aureos comitibus divisit iusque iurandum et cautionem exegit a singulis, non alio datam summam quam in emptionem Alexandrinarum mercium absumpturos.

[98] Then, after coasting the shore of Campania and the nearby islands, he devoted four days also to a retreat at Capri, with a mind most relaxed for leisure and for all comity. By chance, as he was sailing past the Puteolan bay, the passengers and sailors from an Alexandrian ship, which had but just put in, clad in white and wreathed with garlands and offering incense, had heaped up auspicious omens and exceptional praises—through him, they said, they lived, through him they sailed, through him they enjoyed liberty and fortunes. Greatly exhilarated by this, he distributed forty gold pieces apiece to his companions and exacted from each an oath and a bond, that they would expend the sum given on nothing other than the purchase of Alexandrian wares.

Sed et ceteros continuos dies inter varia munuscula togas insuper ac pallia distribuit, lege proposita ut Romani Graeco, Graeci Romano habitu et sermone uterentur. Spectavit assidue exercentes ephebos, quorum aliqua adhuc copia ex vetere instituto Capreis erat; isdem etiam epulum in conspectu suo praebuit, permissa, immo exacta iocandi licentia diripiendique pomorum et obsoniorum rerumque missilia. Nullo denique genere hilaritatis abstinuit.

But also on the other successive days, amid various little gifts, he distributed togas and, in addition, pallia, with a law laid down that Romans should use Greek dress and speech, and Greeks Roman dress and speech. He continually watched the ephebes exercising, of whom there was still some number on Capri from an old institution; to these same he also provided a banquet in his own sight, permission—nay, a requirement—having been granted for jesting and for snatching up fruits and viands and things to be thrown. In fine, he abstained from no kind of mirth.

Vicinam Capreis insulam Apragopolim appellabat, a desidia secedentium illuc e comitatu suo. Sed ex dilectis unum, Masgaban nomine, quasi conditorem insulae κτίστην vocare consuerat. Huius Masgabae ante annum defuncti tumulum cum e triclinio animadvertisset magna turba multisque luminibus frequentari, versum compositum ex tempore clare pronuntiavit:

He used to call the island neighboring Capri “Apragopolis,” from the idleness of those withdrawing there from his retinue. But among his favorites he was accustomed to call one, by the name Masgaban, as though the founder of the island, “κτίστην.” When he noticed from the dining room that the tomb of this Masgaba, who had died a year before, was being thronged by a great crowd and many lights, he loudly pronounced a verse composed on the spot:

conversusque ad Thrasyllum Tiberi comitem, contra accubantem et ignarum rei, interrogavit, cuiusnam poetae putaret esse; quo haesitante subiecit alium:

and turning to Thrasyllus, Tiberius’s companion, reclining opposite and ignorant of the matter, he asked whose poet he thought it was; as he hesitated, he added another:

ac de hoc quoque consuluit. Cum ille nihil aliud responderet quam, cuiuscumque essent optimos esse, cachinnum sustulit atque in iocos effusus est.

and he consulted about this as well. When he responded nothing else than that, whoever’s they were, they were the best, he raised a guffaw and broke out into jokes.

Mox Neapolim traiecit, quanquam etiam tum infirmis intestinis morbo variante; tamen et quinquennale certamen gymnicum honori suo institutum perspectavit et cum Tiberio ad destinatum locum contendit. Sed in redeundo adgravata valitudine tandem Nolae succubuit revocatumque ex itinere Tiberium diu secreto sermone detinuit, neque post ulli maiori negotio animum accommodavit.

Soon he crossed over to Naples, although even then with his intestines weak, the disease varying; nevertheless he both inspected the quinquennial gymnic contest instituted in his honor and, together with Tiberius, hastened to the destined place. But on the return, his health aggravated, at last at Nola he succumbed, and, Tiberius having been recalled from his journey, he detained him for a long time in secret conversation, nor thereafter did he accommodate his mind to any further greater business.

[99] Supremo die identidem exquirens, an iam de se tumultus foris esset, petito speculo, capillum sibi comi ac malas labantes corrigi praecepit, et admissos amicos percontatus, ecquid iis videretur mimum vitae commode transegisse, adiecit et clausulam:

[99] On the last day, repeatedly inquiring whether there was already a commotion outside on his account, and, when a mirror had been requested, he ordered his hair to be combed and his drooping cheeks to be set right, and, after questioning the friends who had been admitted whether it seemed to them that he had suitably played out the mime of life, he added the closing clause:

Omnibus deinde dimissis, dum advenientes ab urbe de Drusi filia aegra interrogat, repente in osculis Liviae et in hac voce defecit: Livia, nostri coniugii memor vive, ac vale! sortitus exitum facilem et qualem semper optaverat. Nam fere quotiens audisset cito ac nullo cruciatu defunctum quempiam, sibi et suis εὐθανασίαν similem (hoc enim et verbo uti solebat) precabatur.

After dismissing everyone, while he was asking those arriving from the City about Drusus’s daughter being ill, suddenly, in Livia’s kisses and with this utterance, he expired: Livia, mindful of our marriage, live, and farewell! having obtained an easy exit and such as he had always desired. For almost as often as he had heard that someone had died quickly and with no torment, he would pray for himself and his own a similar euthanasia (for he was even accustomed to use this word).

Unum omnino ante efflatam animam signum alienatae mentis ostendit, quod subito pavefactus a quadraginta se iuvenibus abripi questus est. Id quoque magis praesagium quam mentis deminutio fuit, siquidem totidem milites praetoriani extulerunt eum in publicum.

He showed only a single sign at all of an alienated mind before he breathed out his spirit, namely that, suddenly terror-struck, he complained that he was being snatched away by forty youths. This too was more a presage than a diminution of mind, since just so many Praetorian soldiers carried him forth into public.

[100] Obiit in cubiculo eodem, quo pater Octavius, duobus Sextis, Pompeio et Appuleio, cons. XIIII. Kal.

[100] He died in the same bedchamber in which his father Octavius [had died], when the two Sexti, Sextus Pompeius and Sextus Appuleius, were consuls, on the 14th day before the Kalends.

Septemb. hora diei nona, septuagesimo et sexto aetatis anno, diebus V et XXX minus. Corpus decuriones municipiorum et coloniarum a Nola Bovillas usque deportarunt, noctibus propter anni tempus, cum interdiu in basilica cuiusque oppidi vel in aedium sacrarum maxima reponeretur.

Septemb. at the ninth hour of the day, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, less by 35 days. The decurions of the municipalities and colonies transported the body from Nola as far as Bovillas, by night on account of the time of year, while in the daytime it was set in the basilica of each town or in the largest of the sacred buildings.

A Bovillis equester ordo suscepit, urbique intulit atque in vestibulo domus conlocavit. Senatus et in funere ornando et in memoria honoranda eo studio certatim progressus est, ut inter alia complura censuerint quidam, funus triumphali porta ducendum, praecedente Victoria quae est in curia, canentibus neniam principum liberis utriusque sexus; alii, exsequiarum die ponendos anulos aureos ferreosque sumendos; nonnulli, ossa legenda per sacerdotes summorum collegiorum. Fuit et qui suaderet, appellationem mensis Augusti in Septembrem transferendam, quod hoc genitus Augustus, illo defunctus esset; alius, ut omne tempus a primo die natali ad exitum eius saeculum Augustum appellaretur et ita in fastos referretur.

From Bovillae the equestrian order took it up, brought it into the city, and placed it in the vestibule of the house. The Senate, both in adorning the funeral and in honoring the memory, advanced with such rival zeal that, among many other things, some decreed that the funeral be led through the triumphal gate, with Victory which is in the Curia going before, while the children of the nobles of both sexes sang a dirge; others, that on the day of the obsequies gold rings be laid aside and iron ones assumed; some, that the bones be gathered by the priests of the highest colleges. There was even one who advised that the appellation of the month August be transferred to September, because in this Augustus had been born, in that he had died; another, that all the time from his first natal day to his end be called the Augustan age and thus be entered in the Fasti.

Verum adhibito honoribus modo, bifariam laudatus est: pro aede Divi Iuli a Tiberio et pro rostris veteribus a Druso Tiberi filio, ac senatorum umeris delatus in Campum crematusque. Nec defuit vir praetorius, qui se effigiem cremati euntem in caelum vidisse iuraret. Reliquias legerunt primores equestris ordinis, tunicati et discincti pedibusque nudis, ac Mausoleo condiderunt.

But, with a due measure of honors observed, he was lauded in two places: before the temple of the Divine Julius by Tiberius, and before the old Rostra by Drusus, the son of Tiberius; and, borne on the shoulders of the senators into the Campus, he was cremated. Nor was there lacking a man of praetorian rank who would swear that he had seen the effigy of the cremated going up into heaven. The foremost of the equestrian order gathered the relics, wearing tunics, ungirded, and barefoot, and they laid them in the Mausoleum.

Id opus inter Flaminiam viam ripamque Tiberis sexto suo consulatu exstruxerat circumiectasque silvas et ambulationes in usum populi iam tum publicarat.

That work between the Flaminian Way and the bank of the Tiber he had constructed in his sixth consulship, and the surrounding groves and promenades he had already then made public for the use of the people.

[101] Testamentum L. Planco C. Silio cons. III. Non.

[101] Testament, in the consulship of L. Plancus and C. Silius, on the 3rd day before the Nones.

Apriles, ante annum et quattuor menses quam decederet, factum ab eo ac duobus codicibus, partim ipsius partim libertorum Polybi et Hilarionis manu, scriptum depositumque apud se virgines Vestales cum tribus signatis aeque voluminibus protulerunt. Quae omnia in senatu aperta atque recitata sunt. Heredes instituit primos: Tiberium ex parte dimidia et sextante, Liviam ex parte tertia, quos et ferre nomen suum iussit, secundos: Drusum Tiberi filium ex triente, ex partibus reliquis Germanicum liberosque eius tres sexus virilis, tertio gradu: propinquos amicosque compluris.

In April, a year and four months before he passed away, made by him and written in two codices, partly by his own hand and partly by the hands of his freedmen Polybius and Hilarion, and deposited with them, the Vestal virgins brought it forth together with three likewise sealed volumes. All these were opened and recited in the senate. He instituted as first heirs: Tiberius for a half and a sixth, Livia for a third, whom he also ordered to bear his name; as second: Drusus, son of Tiberius, for a third; from the remaining shares, Germanicus and his three children of the male sex; in the third rank: several relatives and friends.

Legavit populo Romano quadringnties, tribubus tricies quinquies sestertium, praetorianis militibus singula milia nummorum, cohortibus urbanis quingenos, legionaris trecenos nummos: quam summam repraesentari iussit, nam et confiscatam semper repositamque habuerat. Reliqua legata varie dedit perduxitque quaedam ad vicies sestertium, quibus solvendis annuum diem finiit, excusata rei familiaris mediocritate, nec plus perventurum ad heredes suos quam milies et quingenties professus, quamvis viginti proximis annis quaterdecies milies ex testamentis amicorum percepisset, quod paene omne cum duobus paternis patrimoniis ceterisque hereditatibus in rem publicam absumpsisset. Iulias filiam neptemque, si quid iis accidisset, vetuit sepulcro suo inferri.

He bequeathed to the Roman people forty million sesterces, to the tribes three million five hundred thousand sesterces, to the praetorian soldiers one thousand coins each, to the urban cohorts five hundred each, to the legionaries three hundred coins each: which sum he ordered to be paid immediately, for he had always kept the confiscated money laid aside. The remaining legacies he gave in various ways and brought some up to two million sesterces, and for paying these he set a term of one year, pleading the mediocrity of his private estate, and declaring that not more than one hundred and fifty million sesterces would come to his heirs, although in the twenty previous years he had received one billion four hundred million from the testaments of friends, almost all of which, together with two paternal patrimonies and the other inheritances, he had expended upon the State. He forbade the Julias, his daughter and granddaughter, if anything should befall them, to be carried into his sepulcher.

Tribus voluminibus, uno mandata de funere suo complexus est, altero indicem rerum a se gestarum, quem vellet incidi in aeneis tabulis, quae ante Mausoleum statuerentur, tertio breviarium totius imperii, quantum militum sub signis ubique esset, quantum pecuniae in aerario et fiscis et vectigaliorum residuis. Adiecit et libertorum servorumque nomina, a quibus ratio exigi posset.

In three volumes: in one he encompassed the mandates concerning his own funeral; in another, an index of the things done by himself, which he wished to be incised on bronze tablets that should be set up before the Mausoleum; in the third, a breviary of the whole empire—how many soldiers under the standards there were everywhere, how much money in the aerarium and the fisc and in the arrears of the revenues. He added also the names of freedmen and slaves, from whom an account could be demanded.