usual business went on nor were the festivals celebrated. After this,
when he heard that some of the soldiers had been saved, that the
Germanies were garrisoned and the enemy did not dare to come down even to
the Rhine, he ceased to be excited and stopped to consider the matter.
A catastrophe so great and prostrating as this, it seemed to him, could
have been due to nothing else than the wrath of some Divinity: moreover,
by reason of the portents which took place both before the defeat and
afterward he was greatly inclined to suspect some miraculous working. The
temple of Mars in the field of the same name had been struck by lightning
and many locusts that flew into the very city were devoured by swallows;
the peaks of the Alps seemed to totter toward one another and to send up
three fiery columns; the sky in many places appeared ablaze and at the
same time numerous comet stars came to view; spears darting from the
north seemed to be falling upon the Roman camp; bees formed their combs
about Roman altars; a statue of Victory which was in Germany, facing
hostile territory, turned about toward Italy; and once an aimless battle
and conflict of the soldiers occurred about the eagles in the camps, as
if the barbarians had fallen upon them.
For these reasons, then, and also because ... [4]
[A.D. 10 (_a. u._ 763)]
Tiberius did not see fit to cross the Rhine, but kept quiet, watching
to see that the barbarians should not do so. The latter, however,
knowing him to be present, did not venture to cross either.
Germanicus was endeared to the populace for many causes, but particularly
because he interceded for various persons, and this quite as
much in the presence of Augustus himself as before other justices. Now
there was a court to try a quæstor who was charged with murder,
and, as Germanicus was going to be his advocate, his accuser became
alarmed lest he might consequently meet with defeat before those
judges in whose presence such cases were wont to be tried, and he
desired to have Augustus preside. Yet his efforts were vain, for he
did not win his case.
... holding [it] after his prætorship.
[A.D. 11 (_a. u._ 764)]
[-25-]But in the following season the temple of Concord was dedicated by
Tiberius and both his name and that of Drusus, his dead brother, were
inscribed upon it. In the consulship of Marcus Æmilius with Statilius
Taurus Tiberius and Germanicus acting as proconsul invaded Celtica and
overran some parts of it. They did not conquer, however, in any battle
(since no one came to close quarters with them), and did not reduce
any tribe. For in their fear of falling victims to a new disaster they
advanced not far beyond the Rhine, but after remaining there until late
autumn and celebrating the birthday of Augustus, on which they held a
kind of horse-race under the direction of the centurions, they returned.
At Rome Drusus Cæsar, the son of Tiberius, became quæstor, and sixteen
prætors held office because that number became candidates for the
position and Augustus, mindful of his condition, was unwilling to
offend any of them. The same did not hold true, however, of the years
immediately following, but the number remained twelve for a long period.
Besides these proceedings the seers were forbidden to prophesy in private
to any one, or regarding death even if there should be others with
them. Yet in this matter Augustus had no personal feeling, so that by a
bulletin he even published to all the conjunction of stars under which
he had been born. In addition to forbidding the above he proclaimed to
subject states that they should grant no honors to any one assigned to
govern them either during his term of office or within sixty days after
he had departed. For some governors by arranging for testimonials and
eulogies from their subjects were doing much harm. Three senators, as
before, transacted business with the embassies, and the knights,--a fact
which might cause surprise,--were allowed to fight as gladiators. The
reason was that some persisted in disregarding the disenfranchisement
stated as a penalty for such conduct. And as there proved to be no use in
forbidding it and the participants seemed to require a greater punishment
before they would be turned aside from this course, they were given
permission to do as they liked. In this way they incurred death instead
of disenfranchisement, for they fought more than ever, and especially
because their contests were centers of attraction, so that even Augustus
became a spectator in company with the prætors who superintended games.
[A.D. 12 (_a. u._ 765)]
[-26-] Germanicus soon after received the office of consul, though he had
not even been prætor, and held it actually throughout the whole year, not
because of fitness but as a number of others held office at that time.
The consul did nothing worthy of note save that at this time, too, he
acted as advocate in suits, since his colleague Gaius Capito counted as
a mere figurehead. Augustus, because he was growing old, wrote a letter
commending Germanicus to the senate and the latter to Tiberius: the
manuscript was not read by him in person, for he was unable to make
himself heard, but by Germanicus, as usual. After that he asked them,
making the Celtic war his excuse, not to come to greet him at home nor to
be angry if he did not continue to eat with them. For generally, as often
as they had a sitting, in the Forum and sometimes in the senate-house
itself, they saluted him when he entered and again when he left; and it
had already happened that, when he was sitting and sometimes lying down
in the Palatium, not only the senate but the knights and many of the
populace greeted him. [-27-] All this time he continued to attend to his
business as before. He allowed the knights to become candidates for the
tribuneship. And learning that vituperative books concerning certain men
were being written, he ordered a search for them. Those that he found in
the city he had burned by the ædiles and those outside by the officials
who might be in charge, and he visited punishment upon some of the
composers. As there were many exiles who were either carrying on their
occupations outsides of the places to which they had been banished or
living too luxuriously in the proper places, he forbade that any one who
had been debarred from fire and water should stay either on the mainland
or on any of the islands distant less than four hundred stadia from the
mainland. Only he made an exception of Cos, Rhodes, Samos[5], and Lesbos,
for what reason I know not. He enjoined upon them also that they should
not cross the seas to any other point and should not possess more than
one ship of burden having a capacity of one thousand amphoræ, and two
driven by oars; that they should not employ more than twenty slaves or
freedmen; that they should not hold property above twelve and a half
myriads; and he threatened to take vengeance upon them for any violation
as well as upon all others who should in any way assist them in violating
these ordinances. These are the laws, as fully as is necessary for our
history, that he laid down.
A festival extraordinary was conducted by the dancers and horse-breeders.
The Feast of Mars, because the Tiber had previously occupied the
hipprodrome, was this time held in the forum of Augustus and honored by a
kind of horse-race and by the slaughter of wild beasts. It was celebrated
a second time, as custom decreed, and Germanicus on that occasion killed
two hundred lions in the hippodrome. The so-called portico of Julia was
built in honor of Gaius and Lucius, the Cæsars, and was at that time
dedicated.
[A.D. 13 (_a. u._ 766)]
[-28-] When Lucius Munatius and Gaius Silius had been registered as
consuls Augustus reluctantly accepted the fifth decennial presidency of
the State and gave Tiberius again the tribunician authority. To Drusus,
the latter's son, he granted permission to stand for the consulship a
third year, still without having held the prætorship; and for himself
he asked twenty annual counselors because of his old age, which did not
permit him to visit the senate any longer save rarely. Previously fifteen
were attached to him for six months. It was further voted that any
measure should have authority, as satisfactory to the whole senate, which
should after deliberation be resolved upon by him in conjunction with
Tiberius and with the consuls of the year, with the men appointed for
deliberation and his grandchildren (the adopted ones, of course) and the
others that he might on any occasion call upon for advice. Gaining by the
decree those powers (which in reality he had in any case) he transacted
most of the is necessary business, though sometimes lying down. Now
as nearly all felt oppressed by the five per cent tax and a political
convulsion seemed likely, he sent document to the senate bidding its
members seek some other means of income. This he did not in the intention
of abolishing the tax but in order that when no other appeared to them
preferable they might though reluctantly ratify it without declaiming
against him He also ordered Germanicus and Drusus not to make any
official statement about it, for fear that if they expressed an opinion
persons would suspect that this had been done by his orders and choose
that plan without further investigation. There was much discussion and
some schemes were submitted to Augustus in writing. When he found by them
that the senators were ready to endure any form of tax rather than that
in force, he changed it to a levy upon fields and houses. And without
telling how great it would be or in what way imposed, he immediately sent
men in different directions to make a list of the possessions both of
individuals and of towns. His object was that they should fear losses on
a large scale and so be content to pay the five per cent. This actually
happened, and so it was that Augustus settled the difficulty.
[-29-] At the spectacle of the Augustalia [6] which occurred on his
birthday a madman seated himself in the chair which was dedicated to
Julius Cæsar, and taking his crown put it on. This happening disturbed
everybody, for it seemed to have some bearing upon Augustus, as, indeed,
proved true.
[A.D. 14 (_a. u._ 767)]
For the following year, when Sextus Apuleius and Sextus Pompeius were
consuls, Augustus set out for Campania and after superintending the games
at Naples soon passed away in Nola. Omens had appeared to him, not few by
any means nor difficult to interpret, that pointed to this end. The sun
suffered a total eclipse and most of the sky seemed to be on fire. The
forms of glowing logs appeared falling from it and bloody comet stars
were seen. When a senate-meeting had been announced on account of his
sickness in order that they might offer prayers, the senate-house was
found closed and an owl sitting upon it hooted. A thunderbolt fell upon
his image standing on the Capitol and erased the first letter of the name
of Cæsar. This led the seers to declare that on the hundredth day
after that he should attain to some heavenly condition. They made this
deduction from the fact that the letter mentioned signifies "hundred"
among the Latins and all the rest of the name means "god" among the
Etruscans. These signs appeared while he was still alive. Men of later
times called attention to the case of the consuls and of Servius
Sulpicius Galba. The former officials were in some way related to
Augustus, and Galba, who afterward came to power, was at this time on the
very first day of the year enrolled among the iuvenes. Since he was the
first of the Romans to become sovereign after the race of Augustus had
passed away, it gave occasion to some to say that this coincidence had
not been due to mere accident, but had been brought about by some divine
counsel.
[-30-] So Augustus fell sick and died. Livia incurred some suspicion
regarding the manner of his death, inasmuch as he had secretly sailed
over to the island to meet Agrippa and thought to reconcile everything in
a way satisfactory to all. She was afraid, some say, that Augustus would
bring him back to make him sovereign, and so smeared with poison some
figs that were still on trees from which Augustus was wont to gather
fruit with his own hands. So she ate the ones that had not been smeared,
and pointed out the poisoned ones to him. From this or from some other
cause he became ill and sending for his associates he told them all his
wishes, finally adding: "Rome was clay when I took it in hand: I leave it
to you stone." In this he had reference not entirely to the appearance
of its buildings, but also to the strength of the empire. By asking
some applause from them as to comic actors at the close of some mime he
ridiculed most tellingly the whole life of man.
Thus on the nineteenth day of August, the day on which he first became
consul, he passed away, having lived seventy-five years, ten months, and
twenty-six days. He had been born on the twenty-third of September. He
reigned as monarch, from the time he conquered at Actium, forty-four
years lacking thirteen days. [-31-] His death, however, was not
immediately made public. Livia, fearing that as Tiberius was still in
Dalmatia there might be some uprising, concealed the fact until the
latter arrived. This is the statement made in the larger number of
histories and the more trustworthy ones. There are some who have affirmed
that Tiberius was present during the emperor's illness and received some
injunctions from him.--The body of Augustus was carried from Nola by
the foremost men of each city in succession. When it came near Rome the
knights took it in charge and conveyed it by night into the city. On the
following day there was a senate-meeting, and to it the majority came
wearing the equestrian costume, but the officials the senatorial, except
for the purple-bordered togas. Tiberius and Drusus his son wore dark
clothing made in everyday fashion. They, too, offered incense but made
no use of a flute player. Most of the members sat in their accustomed
places, but the consuls below, one on the prætors' bench and one on
the tribunes'. After this Tiberius was absolved for having touched
the corpse,--a forbidden act,--and for having escorted it on its way,
although the ...
[-32-]
... his will Drusus took from the virgin priestesses of Vesta, with
whom it had been deposited, and carried it into the senate. Those who
had sealed it viewed the impressions, and then it was read in hearing
of the senate.
... one Polybius of Cæsar's household read his will, as it was not proper
for a senator to read anything of the sort. It showed that two-thirds
of the inheritance had been left to Tiberius and the rest to Livia,--at
least this is one report. In order that she, too, might have the benefit
of his property he had asked permission of the senate to leave her
so much, since it was contrary to law. These two were mentioned as
inheritors. He ordered many objects and sums of money to be given to many
different persons, both relatives of his and those joined by no ties of
kindred, not only to senators and knights but also to kings; for the
people there were a thousand myriads and for the soldiers two hundred
and fifty denarii apiece to the Pretorians, half that amount to the city
force, and to the remainder of the native soldiery seventy-five each.
Moreover, in the case of children, of whose fathers he had been the heir
while they were still small, he enjoined that everything, together with
income, should be given back to them when they became men: this was,
indeed his custom while in life. Whenever he inherited the estate of any
one who had offspring, he never neglected to give it all to the man's
children, immediately if they were already adults, and later if it were
otherwise. Though he took such an attitude toward other people's children
he did not restore his daughter from exile, though he deemed her worthy
of gifts; and he forbade her being buried in his own tomb.--So much was
learned from the will.
[-33-] Four books were then brought in and Drusus read them. In the first
were written details pertaining to his funeral; in the second all the
works which he had done, which he commanded to be inscribed aloft upon
bronze columns to be set around his heroum; the third contained
an account of military matters, of the revenues and of the public
expenditures, the amount of money in the treasuries, and everything else
of the sort having a bearing upon the administration; and the fourth had
injunctions and orders for Tiberius and for the public. Among these last
was a command that they should not liberate many slaves and should thus
avoid filing the city with a variegated rabble. He also exhorted them
not to enroll large numbers as citizens, in order that there might be a
distinct difference between themselves and subject nations; to deliver
the control of public business to all who had ability both to understand
and to act, and never to let it depend on any one person; in this way no
one would set his mind on a tyranny nor would the State go to pieces if
one fell. He advised them to be satisfied with present possessions
and under no conditions to wish to increase the empire to any greater
dimensions. It would be hard to guard, he said, and this would lead to
danger of their losing what was already theirs. This principle he had
himself really always followed not only in speech but also in action.
For, whereas he might have made great acquisitions of barbarian
territory, he had not wished to do so.--These were his injunctions.
[-34-] Then came his funeral. There was a couch made of ivory and gold
and adorned with robes of purple mixed with gold. In it his body was
hidden, in a kind of box down below: a wax image of him in triumphal
garb was displayed. This one was borne from the Palatium by the officials
for the following year, and another of gold from the senate-house, and
still another upon a triumphal chariot. Behind these came the images of
his ancestors and of his deceased relatives (except of Cæsar, because he
had been enrolled among the heroes), and those of other Romans who had
been prominent in any way, beginning with Romulus himself. An image of
Pompey the Great was also seen, and all the nations he had acquired, each
represented by a likeness which bore some local characteristic, were
carried in procession. After these followed all the remaining objects
mentioned above. When the couch had been placed in view upon the orators'
platform, Drusus read something from that place: and from the other, the
rostra of the Julian shrine, Tiberius delivered the following public
oration over the deceased, according to a decree:--
[-35-] "What needed to be said privately by relatives over the divine
Augustus Drusus has spoken. But since the senate has wisely deemed him
worthy of some kind of public utterance, I know that the speech was
fittingly entrusted to me. To whom more justly than to me, his child and
successor, could be the task of praising him be confided? It is not my
privilege, however, to be gladdened by the thought that my ability must
prove no whit inferior to your desires in the matter and to his worth.
Indeed, if I were to speak among strangers, I should be greatly alarmed
lest in following my speech they should believe his deeds to be no better
than I describe them. As it is, I am encouraged by the thought that my
words will be directed to you who know all of them thoroughly, have
experienced them all, and for that reason have deemed him worthy of these
very praises. You will judge of his excellence not from what I may say
but from what you yourselves know, and you will assist my discourse,
making good what is deficient by your memory of events. So that in this
way his eulogy will become a public one, given by all, as I, like the
head of some chorus, indicate the chief points and you come in with the
remainder of the refrain. I am certainly not afraid that you will hold me
guilty of weakness because I am unable to meet your desires nor that you
will be jealous to see his excellence going beyond your reach. Who does
not understand the fact that not all mankind assembled in one place could
worthily sound his praises? And you all voluntarily make way for him to
triumph, not envious to think that not one of you could equal him, but
rejoicing in his surpassing greatness. The greater he looms up before
you, the more greatly will you feel yourselves benefited, so that envy
will not be bred in you by your inferiority to him but awe from the
advantages you have received at his hands.
[-36-] "I shall begin at the point where he also began to enter politics,
that is, from his earliest manhood. This, indeed, is one of the greatest
achievements of Augustus,--that when he had just emerged from boyhood and
was entering upon the state of youth, he paid attention to education
so long as public affairs were well managed by the famous Cæsar, the
demi-god: when after the conspiracy against the latter the whole
commonwealth was thrown into confusion, he at the same time amply avenged
his father and rendered a much needed aid to you, not fearing the
multitude of his enemies nor dreading the greatness of the business nor
hesitating through his own immaturity. Yet what deed like this can be
cited of Alexander of Macedon or our Romulus, who have the reputation of
having done something brilliant when very young? But these I shall pass
over, lest from merely comparing them with him and bringing them up,--and
that among you who are acquainted with him no less than I,--I may be
thought to be diminishing the greatness of Augustus. If I am to do this
sort of thing, I should be justified only if I looked at his deeds beside
those of Hercules: yet even then I should fail of my effect, inasmuch as
the latter killed only serpents when he was a child, a stag and a
boar when he was a man,--oh, yes, and by Jupiter a lion also, though
reluctantly and in obedience to a command; whereas our hero voluntarily
made wars and enacted laws not among beasts but among men, carefully
preserved the commonwealth, and himself gained brilliance. It was for
this that you chose him prætor and appointed him consul at that age when
some are unwilling even to serve in the army.
[-37-] "This was the beginning of political life for Augustus, and it is
the beginning of my speech about him. Soon after, seeing that the
largest and best portion both of the people and of the senate was in
accord with him, but that Lepidus and Antony, Sextus, Brutus, and Cassius
were employing rebels, he feared that the city might become involved in
many wars,--civil wars,--at once, and be so torn asunder and exhausted as
not to be able to revive in any fashion; and so he manipulated them very
cleverly and to the greatest public good. He attached himself to the
strong ones, who were menacing the very city, and with them fought the
others till he made an end of them: when these were out of the way he in
turn freed us from the former. He chose against his will to surrender a
few to their wrath so that he might save the majority, and he chose to
assume a friendly attitude toward them individually so as not to have to
fight with them all at once. From this he derived no individual gain but
aided us all most evidently. Why should one speak at length to enumerate
his deeds in the wars both at home and abroad? Consider especially that
the former ought never to have occurred at all and that the latter by the
conquests gained show their advantages better than any words, moreover
that they largely depended upon chance, that the successes were obtained
with the aid of many citizens and many allies so that these deserve the
credit equally with him, and finally that the achievements might possibly
be compared with those of some others. These, accordingly, I shall put
aside. You can behold and read them inscribed in letters and characters
in many places. I shall speak only of the works which belong to Augustus
himself, which have never been performed by any other man, and have not
only caused our city to survive from many dangers of a sorts but have
rendered it more prosperous and powerful. The mention of them will confer
upon him a unique glory and will afford the elder among you an innocent
pleasure while giving the younger men an exact instruction in the
character and constitution of the government.