Dio's Rome Volume IV Part 11

[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 consuls.h.i.+p a third year, still without having held the praetors.h.i.+p; 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 doc.u.ment to the senate bidding its members seek some other means of income. This he did not in the intention of abolis.h.i.+ng 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 Caesar, 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 s.e.xtus Apuleius and s.e.xtus Pompeius were consuls, Augustus set out for Campania and after superintending the games at Naples soon pa.s.sed 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 Caesar. 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 "G.o.d" 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sociates 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 pa.s.sed 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 fas.h.i.+on. 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 praetors' 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 Caesar'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 att.i.tude 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 Caesar, 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 a.s.sist 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 a.s.sembled 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 surpa.s.sing 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 Caesar, the demi-G.o.d: 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 mult.i.tude 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 pa.s.s 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 diminis.h.i.+ng 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 praetor 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, s.e.xtus, Brutus, and Ca.s.sius 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 fas.h.i.+on; 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 a.s.sume a friendly att.i.tude 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 const.i.tution of the government.

[-38-] "This Augustus, then, whom you deemed worthy of this t.i.tle for the very reasons just cited, as soon as he had freed himself from the civil wars after acting and enduring (not in a way that pleased himself) as Heaven approved, first of all preserved the lives of most of his opponents, who were survivors of the army, and thus he in no way imitated Sulla, called the Fortunate. Not to give you a list of all of them, who does not know about Sosius, about Scaurus the brother of s.e.xtus, and particularly about Lepidus, who lived so long a time after his defeat and continued to be high priest his whole life through? Next he honored his companions in conflict with many great gifts, but did not allow them to act in any arrogant way or to be wanton. You know thoroughly among others in this category both Maecenas and Agrippa, so that there is no need of my enumerating the names. Augustus had two qualities, too, which were never united in any one else. Some conquerors, I know, have spared their enemies and others have refused to allow their companions to give way to license. But both sorts of behavior at once, continually without any exception, were never found in the same man. Here is evidence. Sulla and Marius treated as enemies even the children of those who fought against them. Why need I cite the other less important men? Pompey and Caesar were in general guiltless of this conduct, but permitted their friends to do not a few things that were contrary to their own principles. But this man had each of the two virtues so fused and intermingled that to his adversaries he made defeat look like victory and to his comrades he showed a happiness in excellence.

[-39-] "After doing this and quieting by kindness all that remained of factional disputes and imposing temperance by his benefits upon the victorious military, he might as a result of this and the weapons and the money at his command have been indisputably the sole lord of everything, as, indeed, he had been made by the very course of events. Yet he refused, and like a good physician, who takes in hand a disease-ridden body and heals it, he restored everything to you after making it well.

And to what this action amounted you can best realize from the fact that our fathers spoke in praise of Pompey and Metellus, who was formerly prominent, because they voluntarily disbanded the forces with which they had been engaged in war. Now if they, who had but a small force and a merely temporary one and besides saw opponents who would not allow them to do otherwise,--if they received praise for doing this,--how could one speak fittingly of the magnanimity of Augustus? He held all your forces, however great, he was master of all your funds, vast in amount, had no one to fear or suspect: but whereas he might have ruled alone with the approval of all, he would not accept such a course, but laid the arms, the provinces, the money at your feet. Wherefore you with wise insistence and proper prudence would not have it nor allow him to retire to private life; you knew well that democracy would never accommodate itself to such tremendous interests, but that the superintendence of a single person would most surely preserve them, and so refused what was nominally independence but really factional discord. And making choice of him, whom you had proved worthy by his very deeds, you compelled him to stand at your head for a time at least. When you had in this way tested him even more than before, you finally forced him a second, a third, a fourth, and a fifth time to remain as manager of public affairs. [-40-] It was only natural. Who would not choose to be safe without trouble, to be prosperous without danger, to enjoy unsparingly the blessings of government and not to be disturbed by cares for its maintenance? Who was there that could rule even his private possessions better than Augustus, to say nothing of the goods of so many human beings? He accepted the trying and hostile provinces for his own portion to guard and preserve, but restored to you all such others as were peaceful and free from danger. Though he supported such a large standing army to fight in your behalf, he let the soldiers be troublesome to none of his own countrymen but rendered them to outsiders most terrifying guardians, to the people at home unarmed and unwarlike. The senators in places of authority were not deprived of appeal to the lot, but prizes for excellence were furnished them in addition. He did not destroy the power of the ballot in their decisions and he guaranteed safety in free speech as well. Cases difficult to decide he transferred from the people to the searching justice of the courts, but preserved to the popular body the dignity of the elections and trained citizens in these to seek a means of honor, not of strife. He even cut away the ambitious greed of office seekers and put a regard for reputation in its place. His own money, which he increased by legitimate methods, he spent for public needs: for the public funds he cared as if they were his own, while he refrained from touching them, as belonging to others. He saw that all public works that were falling to decay were repaired, and deprived no one connected with their renovation of the glory attaching: many structures he built anew (some in his own name, some in that of another), or else gave others charge of erecting them. Consequently, his gaze was directed toward public utility and privately he grudged no one the fame to be derived from public service.

Wantonness among his own kin he recompensed relentlessly, but the offences of others he treated with humaneness. Those who had traits of excellence he allowed to come as near as they could to his own standard, and with the conduct of such as lived otherwise he did not concern himself minutely. Among those who conspired against him he invoked justice upon only those whose lives were of no profit even to themselves.

The rest he placed in such a position that for a great while they could obtain no excuse either true or false for attacking him. It is nothing surprising that he was occasionally the object of conspiracies, for even the G.o.ds do not please all alike. The excellence of good rulers is discernible not in the villainies of others but in their own good behavior.

[-41-] "I have spoken, Quirites, of his greatest and most striking characteristics in a rather summary way. For if one should desire to enumerate all of his great points individually, it would need many days.

Furthermore, I know that though you will have heard so few facts from me, they will lead you to remember for yourselves everything else, and it will seem almost as if I had spoken that too. In the rest that I have said about him I have not been speaking in a spirit of vainglory [7], nor has that been your state of mind in listening; but I intended that his many n.o.ble achievements might obtain an ever memorable glory in your souls. Who would not feel inclined to make mention of his senators?--how without giving offence he removed the sc.u.m that had come to the surface from the factions, how by this very act he exalted the remainder, magnified it by increasing the property requirement, and enriched it by grants of money; how he voted on an equality with the senators and had their help in making changes; how he communicated to them all the greatest and most important matters either in the meeting-place or else at his house, whither he called different members at different times because of his age and bodily infirmity. Who would not like to cite the condition of the rest of the Romans, before whom he set public works, money, games, festivals, amnesty, an abundance of food, safety not only from the enemy and evildoers but even from the acts of Heaven, nor such alone as befall by day, but by night as well? Or, again, the allies?--how he made their freedom free from danger and their alliance to involve no loss. Or the subject nations?--how no one of them was treated with insolence or abuse. How can one forget a man who was in private life poor, in public life rich, saving in his own case but liberal of expenditures for others?--one who even endured all toil and danger for you but would not submit to your escorting him when he went forth on any expedition or to your meeting him when he returned: one who on festivals admitted even the populace to his home, but on other days greeted even the senate only in its chambers? How could one forget the number and precision as well of his laws, which contained for the wronged an all-sufficient consolation and for the wrongdoers a not inhuman punishment? Or his rewards offered to those who married and had children?

Or the prizes given to the soldiers without disadvantage to any other person? Then there is the fact of his being satisfied with our possessions once for all acquired by the will of Destiny, and his refusal to subjugate additional territory. For while imagining that we bore a wider sway we might meantime lose all we had. You recall how he always shared the joys and sorrows, the jests and earnestness of his intimate friends, and allowed absolutely all who could make any useful suggestion to feel free to speak; how he praised those who spoke the truth and hated flatterers; how he bestowed upon many large sums from his own means, and how when aught was bequeathed to him by men with children he restored it all to those children. What oblivion is dark enough to bury all this? It was for this, therefore, I say, that you naturally made him your head and a father of the people, that you decked him with many marks of esteem and numerous consuls.h.i.+ps and finally declared him a hero and published him as immortal. Hence we ought not either to mourn for him, but to give his body back now in due time to Nature, and to glorify his spirit, as that of a G.o.d, forever."

[-42-] This was what Tiberius read. Directly after, the same men as before took up the couch and carried it through the triumphal gateway, according to the senate's decree. There were present and took part in carrying him out the senate and the equestrian cla.s.s, the women of his family, and the pretorian guard; and nearly everybody else in the city was in attendance. When the body had been placed on the pyre in the Campus Martius, all the priests marched about it first; and then the knights, all the magistrates and others, and the heavy-armed force for garrison duty ran around it; and they cast upon it all the triumphal decorations which any of them had ever received from him for any deed of valor. Next the centurions took torches, conformably to a decree of the senate, and kindled the fire from beneath. So it was consumed, and an eagle released from it flew aloft appearing to bear his spirit into heaven. When this had been accomplished most of those present departed; but Livia remained on the spot for five days in company with the most prominent knights, and gathered his bones, which she placed in the monument.

The show of grief required by law was prolonged [-43-] only for a few days by the men, but by the women, according to a decree, for a whole year. Real grief not in the hearts of many at the time, but later felt by all the citizens. Augustus had been accessible to all and was accustomed to aid many persons in the matter of money. He used to bestow honors scrupulously upon his friends and delighted exceedingly to have them speak frankly. One instance, in addition to what has been told, occurred in the case of Athenodorus. The latter was once brought into his room in a covered litter, as if it were some woman, and leaping from it sword in hand asked: "Aren't you afraid that some one may come in this way and kill you?" Instead of being angry Augustus thanked him for his suggestion.

The people consequently were wont to recall these traits of his, and how he did not get blindly enraged at those who injured him as well as how he kept faith with even such as were unworthy of it. There was a robber named Corocotta, who flourished in Spain, and the emperor was in the first place so angry at him that he offered twenty-five myriads to the man that captured him alive. Later the robber came to him of his own accord, and he not only did him no harm but made him richer by the amount of money mentioned. Hence the Romans missed him mightily for these reasons as well as because by mingling monarchy with democracy he preserved their freedom for them and secured orderliness and security, so that their lives, free from the audacities of democracy, free from the wantonness of tyrannies, were cast in a liberty of moderation and under a monarchy without terrors; they were subjects of royalty, yet not slaves, and democratic citizens without discord. [-44-] If any of them remembered his former deeds in the course of the civil wars, they laid them to the pressure of circ.u.mstances, and they thought it fair to look for his real disposition, which had given him undisputed authority. This offered, in truth, a mighty contrast. Any one who goes carefully into each of his separate actions will find this true. In regard to the ma.s.s of them I must record curtly that he stopped all factional disputes, transformed the government in a way to give it power, and strengthened it greatly.

Therefore if any deed of violence is encountered,--as is often bound to happen when the face of a situation s.h.i.+fts unexpectedly,--one might more justly blame the circ.u.mstances themselves than him.

Not the smallest factor in his glory was the length of his reign. The majority of those that had lived under a democracy and the more powerful had time to die. Those who were left, knowing nothing of that form of government and having been reared entirely or mostly under existing conditions, were not only not displeased with them,--they had become so familiar,--but took delight in them, for they saw that these were better and more free from terror than others of which they heard.

[-45-] Though the people knew this during his life they nevertheless realized it more fully after his decease. Human nature is so const.i.tuted that in good fortune it does not perceive its prosperity so fully as it misses it when evil days arrive. This was the case then in regard to Augustus. When they found his successor Tiberius not the same sort of man they longed for the previous emperor. Persons with their wits about them had some immediate evidence of the change in the const.i.tution.

The consul Pompeius, who went out to meet the men bearing the body of Augustus, received a blow in the leg and had to be carried back with the body. An owl sat over the senate-house again at the very first sitting of the senate after his death and uttered many ill-omened cries. The two men differed so from each other that some suspected that Augustus with full knowledge of Tiberius's character had purposely appointed him for successor to the end that he himself might have greater glory. This began to be rumored at a later date.

[-46-] At this time they declared Augustus immortal and a.s.signed to him attendants and sacred rites, making Livia (who was already called Julia and Augusta) his priestess. Permission was granted Livia to employ a lictor during the services. And she bestowed upon a certain Numerius Atticus, a senatorial expraetor, twenty-five myriads because he swore that he had seen Augustus ascending into heaven after the manner described in the cases of Proclus and of Romulus. A heroum voted by the senate and built by Livia and Tiberius was erected to the dead emperor in Rome, and others at many different points, sometimes with the consent of the nations concerned and sometimes without their consent. Also the house at Nola, where he pa.s.sed away, was dedicated to him as a precinct. While the heroum was being built in Rome, they placed a golden image of him upon a couch in the temple of Mars, and to this they paid all the honors that they were afterward to give to his statue. Other votes in regard to him were that his image should not be borne in procession at any one's funeral and the consuls should celebrate his birthday with games no less than that of Mars[8] the tribunes, as being sacrosanct, were to manage the Augustalia. These officials conducted everything as had been the custom, wearing the triumphal costume at the horse-race; they did not, however, ascend the chariot. Besides this Livia held a private festival in his honor for three days in the Palatium, and this is continued to the present day by whoever is emperor.

[-47-] This was the extent of the decrees pa.s.sed in memory of Augustus nominally by the senate but really by Tiberius and Livia. Various men made various motions and they decided that Tiberius should receive written proposals from them and pick out whatever he chose. I have added the name of Livia because she took a share in the proceedings, as though she had full power.

Meantime the populace was plunged in tumult because at the Augustalia one of the dancers would not enter the theatre for the stipulated pay. They did not cease their disturbances until the tribunes convened the senate without delay and begged that body to allow them to spend something more than the legal amount.--Here ends my account of Augustus.

[Footnote 1: Undoubtedly _C. Vibius_ POSTUMUS is the person meant.]

[Footnote 2: Reading [Greek: paremenoi] (Boissevain, following the MS.).]

[Footnote 3: A leaf is here missing in the codex Marcia.n.u.s. Of the portion lost Zonaras supplies about one quarter.]

[Footnote 4: Another leaf of the codex Marcia.n.u.s is here lacking, leaving a gap of which Zonaras and an Excerpt of de Valois supply a sixth or more.]

[Footnote 5: A conjecture of Boissevain's. The MS. has "Sardinia." (See Mnemosyne, N.S. XIII, p. 329.)]

[Footnote 6: Dio here appears to confuse the festival of Augustus's Birthday (September 23d) with that of the Augustalia proper, which was celebrated October third to twelfth. The opening of chapter 34, Book Fifty-four, might lead one to think, however, that he had accustomed himself to use the phrase "which are still celebrated" to listing the latter from the former.]

[Footnote 7: This sentence in the MS. is faulty. Oddey and Bekker supplied words for the necessary sense.]

[Footnote 8: Compare Roscher, II, column 2399.];

DIO'S ROMAN HISTORY

57

The following is contained in the Fifty-seventh of Dio's Rome:

About Tiberius (chapter I ff.). How Cappadocia began to be governed by Romans (chapter 17). How Germanicus Caesar died (chapter 18). How Drusus Caesar died (chapter 22).

Duration of time, 11 years, in which there were the following magistrates here enumerated:

Drusus Caesar Tiberi F., C. Norba.n.u.s C. F. Flaccus (A.D. 15 = a. u. 768 = Second of Tiberius, from Aug. 19th.)

T. Statilius T. F. Sisenna Taurus, L. Scribonius L. F. Libo. (A.D. 16 = a. u. 769 = Third of Tiberius.)

C. Caecilius C. F. Nepos [or] Rufus, L. Pomponius L. F. Flaccus. (A.D. 17 = a. u. 770 = Fourth of Tiberius.)