Part 6

[32] Dio, LIV, 1, writes: “In the following year (732) the Tiber again overflowed; statues in the Pantheon were struck by lightning, so that the spear was knocked out of the hand of Augustus. Pestilence was so violent in all Italy that year that there was no one to till the fields; and I think the same was the case in foreign lands. The Romans thought that this plague and famine had come upon them, because they had not made Augustus consul that year; they wished to name him dictator, and with great show of violence compelled the senate, shut up in the curia, to decree this; threatening to burn them unless they did it. So the senate approached Augustus with the twenty-four fasces (insignia of dictatorship, the consul having only twelve), and begged him to accept the dictatorship and the administration of the food supply. He did indeed undertake the latter charge, and ordered that duumvirs, who had held the praetorship five years before, should be yearly appointed to have charge of the distribution of grain, but would by no means accept the dictatorship. When neither by words nor prayers he could move the people, he tore his garments. For he justly wished to avoid the jealousy and hatred of that name, since moreover, he already held a dignity and power superior to that of the dictatorship.” Vell. II, 89, 5, says: “The dictatorship which the people persistently thrust upon him, he as constantly repelled.”

The dictatorship had fallen into disuse after 552, and was revived, irregularly, by Sulla in 672. Cæsar made it the basis of his power, being made perpetual dictator shortly before his death. After that event, on motion of Antony, the office was abolished.

[33] In Chap. 15, Augustus states that in 731 he twelve times distributed grain at his own expense. This assumption of the grain administration in 732 was not strictly a charity. The extract from Dio under Note 69, gives some of the details. It is probable that from this time the tribute in kind was turned into the _fiscus_, or imperial treasury, instead of into the _ærarium_, or treasury of the senate, as heretofore. This new task of the imperial government involved not merely the gratuitous distribution of grain to the ordinary Roman citizens (after 752 even to senators and knights), but also the providing of a sufficient supply of grain for all purchasers at a minimum price, often below the market value. It appears that grain tickets “tessaræ frumentariæ” were distributed to the citizens entitled to free grain, and then, to assist the vast multitude of strangers, freedmen, and _attachés_ of the great houses, money tickets, “tessaræ nummariæ” were given out. Cf. Mommsen, _Röm. St._, II, 992.

[34] Vell. II, 89; Suet. _Aug._ 26; Dio, LIV, 10. Dio’s statement that Augustus in 735 accepted the consular power (differing from the consulship as the tribunitial power from the tribuneship. Cf. Note 31, Chap. 4.) for life, cannot be correct in face of the other two authorities cited, who corroborate Augustus here. Chapter 8 tells of two special assumptions of the consular power for the taking of the second and third census.

[35] Before the restoration of the text of this inscription, in this case depending entirely upon the remains at Apollonia, it used to be taught that Augustus accepted the formal superintendence of laws and morals. And there seemed to be good ground for such belief. Horace, c., 740 in _Carm. IV_, 5, v. 22, says, “Morality and law have subdued foul wrong;” and in _Ep._, II, 1, v. 1, “Since thou hast protected Italy with arms, adorned her with morality, and improved her with laws.” Ovid wrote, _Tristia_, II, 233: “The city wearies thee with the care of laws and morals, which thou desirest should be like thy own.” Suet. _Aug._ 27, says: “He accepted the control of laws and morals for life, as he had the tribunitial power; and in the exercise of this control, altho’ without the honor of the censorship, he yet thrice took the census of the people, the first and third times with a colleague, the second time alone.” Dio, LIV, 10, 30, says that in 735 and 742 Augustus accepted this office for periods of five years. But the inscription shows that Suetonius and Dio were wrong, and that a natural but incorrect inference had been drawn from the poets.

This power was offered to Augustus three times; in 735, 736 and 743, and as often refused. Why was it offered, and why refused? Cf. Dio, LIV, 10; Vell. II, 91, 92; Suet. _Aug._ 19. While Augustus was in Asia in 735 M. Egnatius Rufus, who is painted as a sort of Catiline, tried to obtain the consulship, and even to supplant Augustus, and stirred up sedition in the attempt. This so alarmed the senate and people that they offered Augustus the plenary power of legislation and coercion. The repetition of the offer in 736 was from a similar cause. The reason for that of 743 is unknown. The power thus offered was analogous to the decemvirate, or the Sullan dictatorship. Cf. Mommsen, _Röm._, St., II, 686.

[36] This sentence answers the second question asked in the above Note. It was part of Augustus’ policy to seem to keep wholly within the lines of the constitution. Hence his refusal to accept any extraordinary office. Yet his tribunitial power was new and extraordinary. Tacitus’ comment is caustic, _Ann._, III, 56: “That specious title (the tribunitial power) importing nothing less than sovereign power, was invented by Augustus at a time when the name of king or dictator was not only unconstitutional but universally detested. And yet a new name was wanted to overtop the magistrates and the forms of the constitution.”

[37] Dio, LIV, 16, names three laws promulgated by Augustus in 736: one took cognizance of bribery by candidates for office; a second dealt with extravagance; and a third was for the encouragement of matrimony.

[38] ᵃ in 736 Agrippa was associated with Augustus for five years. Cf. Dio, LIV, 12; Vell. II, 90; Tac. _Ann._ III, 56.

ᵇ in 741 Agrippa again for five years. Cf. Dio, LIV, 12, 28.

ᶜ in 748 Tiberius for five years. Cf. Dio, LV, 9; Vell. II, 99; Suet. _Tib._ 9, 10, 11.

ᵈ in 757 Tiberius for ten years. Cf. Dio, LV, 13; Vell. II, 103; Tac. _Ann._, I, 3, 10.

ᵉ in 766 Tiberius for an indefinite time. Cf. Dio, LVI, 28.

[39] Suet. _Aug._ 27: “He administered the triumvirate for organizing the commonwealth through ten years.” Cf. C. I. L. I, p. 461 and p. 466. The first triumvirate lasted from Nov. 27, 711, to Dec. 31, 716; the second from Jan. 1, 717, to Dec. 31, 721. But cf. c. 34, N. 1.

[40] Cf. Dio, LIII, 1. This title had been conferred upon the senior senator who had served as censor. Its only privilege was the right of speaking first in debate. The honor had fallen into abeyance with the death of Catulus in 694. It is readily seen how the revival of such a title and of the right to express his views before any other senator, gave Augustus a quasi-constitutional initiative in the senate. Gradually the title dropped its second part, and “prince” began to have something of its modern significance. Cf. Tacitus, _Ann._ III, 53, for Tiberius’ view of its meaning.

Augustus’ notation of time here, “through forty years,” is similar to the “thirty-seventh year of the tribunitial power” in Chap. IV, or “the seventy-sixth year” of Chap. 36.

[41] He was made _pontifex_ in 706 by Julius Cæsar. Cf. Cic. _Phil._ V, 17, 46; Vell. II, 59. For his taking the office of _pontifex maximus_ cf. c. 10, N. 3.

[42] The date of Augustus’ assumption of the augurate is discussed by Drumann, IV, 250. Coins are the chief witnesses, and their testimony is confused. The date probably was 713 or 714.

[43] A coin of Augustus (Cohen, _Jul._ 60; _Aug._ 88) has _imp. Cæsar divi f. III vir iter. r. p. c. cos. iter. et tert desig._, which fixes the time as between 717 and 720; it has also the tripod, the symbol of the quindecemvirate.

[44] We can say only that Augustus received this dignity before 738; for there is a coin of that year showing the _simpulum_, the _lituus_ and the tripod, the symbols respectively of the three foregoing offices, and the _patera_, or bowl, that of the septemviral office. The four colleges thus associated are the chief ones. Cf. Chap. 9.

[45] The name of Augustus is twice found in the _Acta Fratrum Arvalium_, once in May, 767, in recording a vote, and in Dec., 767, in the record of the nomination of his successor.

[46] Tacitus says the Titian Sodality was instituted by Titus Tatius for keeping up the Sabine ritual. Cf. _Ann._ I, 54. The record here is all that is known of Augustus’ connection with it.

[47] The fetials had charge of the formalities in declaring war and peace. Dio L, 4, says that Augustus went through the old-fashioned ceremonies in declaring war against Cleopatra.

These three colleges had fallen into abeyance in the time of Cicero. Augustus undoubtedly revived them. Cf. Suet. _Aug._ 31. Such restoration, and religious conservatism in general, as even in the case of Domitian, marks the policy of the emperors for two hundred years, and was one of their favorite methods of posing simply as restorers of the good old times.

[48] In 725. The Saenian law, passed by the people in 724, authorized this proceeding, and the senate’s decree followed. Hence the order, “people and senate.” Cf. Tac. _Ann._ XI, 25; Dio, LII, 42. An earlier creation of patricians is assigned by Dio to the year 721. But he is probably mistaken, as Tacitus, in the passage just noted, says that Claudius was obliged to create more patricians, “because the number had declined even after being recruited by the dictator Cæsar under the Cassian law, and by Augustus the _princeps_ under the Saenian law.” Such a creation was not a right of the principate. Cæsar and Augustus did it by special authorization of people and senate. Claudius did it in virtue of his censorship, and this status continued till Domitian absorbed the censorship in the principate, and assumed the right as a permanent one.

[49] During most of the republican history the senate numbered, ideally, three hundred. In Cicero’s time it had over four hundred members. Julius Cæsar raised it to about nine hundred. Suet. _Aug._, 35, says: “By two separate scrutinies he (Augustus) reduced to their former number and splendor the senate, which had been swamped by a disorderly crowd; for they were now more than a thousand, and some of them very mean persons, who, after Cæsar’s death, had been chosen by dint of interest and bribery, so that they had the name of Orcini among the people.” They were also called Charonites, because they owed their elevation to the last will of Cæsar, who had gone into Orcus to Charon. Dio, XL, 48, 63, tells of freedmen in the senate and, XLIII, 22, of a private soldier; Gell., XV, 4, of a muleteer, cf. Juvenal, _Sat._ VII, 199.

Dio, LII, 42, cf. LIII, 1, tells of the first scrutiny, in 725-6. A hint from Augustus was enough to cause the withdrawal first of sixty, then of one hundred and forty senators. He also tells, LIV, 13, 14, of a further revision in 736, by which the number was brought down to six hundred. He assigns a third sifting to 743 (LIV, 35), and a fourth to 757 (LV, 13). Mommsen, however, is inclined to connect the three revisions of Augustus with the censuses of 726, 746 and 767, and to regard those of 736 and 757 as extraordinary, and therefore not named by Augustus, in his desire to appear entirely within constitutional lines. Cf. Mommsen, _R. G._, p. 35.

[50] Suetonius evidently depends on this inscription when he says, _Aug._ 27: “Three times he took the census of the Roman people, the first and third times with a colleague, the second time alone.” This first census was in 725-6. Cf. Dio, LII, 42; LIII, 1; C. I. L. IX, 422, _imp. Cæsar VI, M. Agrippa II cos.; idem censoria potestate lustrum fecerunt_.

The lustrum was strictly the expiatory offering made at the close of the census. The census had not been taken for forty-one years. The number of Roman citizens of military age in 684 had been given as but 450,000. This census of 726 reported 4,063,000. Probably the vast apparent increase rose from the fact of the earlier enumeration counting only such as presented themselves before the censors in the city, while at the later time the citizens throughout the empire were counted. Clinton, _Fasti Hellenici_, III, 461, estimates a total free citizenship of more than 17,000,000. The total population of the empire at this time, including citizens, allies, slaves and freedmen, has been estimated at 85,000,000. Cf. Merivale, _Rom._ cc. XXX, XXXIX.

The Greek of the inscription here reads erroneously 4,603,000.

[51] In 746. The result, 4,233,000, shows a gain of 170,000.

[52] In 767. Just before the death of Augustus. Result, 4,937,000; gain since 746, 704,000.

[53] Suetonius, _Aug._ 34, relates his endeavors to compel matrimony. In Chap. 89, Suetonius writes: “In reading Greek or Latin authors he paid particular attention to precepts and examples which might be useful in public or private life. These he used to extract verbatim, and give to his domestics, or send to the commanders of the armies, the governors of the provinces, or the magistrates of the city, when any of them seemed to stand in need of admonition. He likewise read whole books to the senate, and frequently made them known to the people by his edicts; such as the orations of Quintus Metellus ‘For the Encouragement of Marriage,’ and those of Rutilius ‘On the Style of Building;’ to show the people that he was not the first who had promoted those objects, but that the ancients likewise had thought them worthy of their attention.” Cf. Livy, _Ep._ LIX; Gell., I, 6.

[54] These games were first held in 726, and every fourth year thereafter. The expression “every fifth year” counts the year of the games as the fifth of the old series and also the first of the new. The consuls, or rather the consul Agrippa, Augustus not holding games in his own honor, celebrated the games of 726, the pontifices those of 730, the augurs those of 734, the quindecemvirs those of 738, and the septemvirs those of 742. Cf. c. 7, N. 6. These games are mentioned by Dio, LIII, 1, 2; LIV, 19; Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ VII, 48, 158; Suet. _Aug._ 44. They came to a close with the life of Augustus. We do not hear of them in connection with any subsequent emperor. Vows for his good health had a special fitness, for according to Suetonius, _Aug._ LXXXI, he was almost an invalid. “During his whole course of life he suffered at times dangerous fits of sickness. He was subject to fits of sickness at stated times every year, for about his birthday he was commonly indisposed. In the beginning of spring he was attacked with an inflammation of the midriff; and when the wind was southerly, with a cold in his head. By all these complaints his constitution was so shattered that he could not readily bear heat or cold.”

[55] Cf. Suet. _Aug._ 59 and 98; Hor. _Carm._ IV, 5, 33; Dio, LI, 19.

[56] Dio writes of the year 725, LI, 20: “When letters were brought about Parthian affairs it was decreed that he should be named in the hymns exactly as were the gods.” Tiridates, a Parthian pretender, sought the aid of Augustus. Cf. Chap. 32, and Dio, LI, 18. Augustus balanced Tiridates against Phraates, the legitimate monarch, who sent an embassy, and gave his son to Rome as a hostage.

[57] In 718, when Lepidus had been overthrown, the tribunitial power had been given to Octavian, as formerly to Julius, for life. Inviolability of person was one of the privileges of the tribunate. Cf. Oros. VI, 18, 34; Dio, XLIX, 15; LI, 18; LIII, 32. These two later statements relating to the years 724 and 731, Mommsen thinks have to do, the former with the extension of the tribunitial power beyond the city, and the latter to the making it annual, as well as perpetual, so that the years of the principate could be reckoned by it. Cf. Chap. 4, note 31. Cf. also App. _B. C._ V, 132, and for a discussion of the tribunitial power as an expression of the principate, cf. Mommsen, _Röm. St._ II, 833, ff.

Wölfflin, cf. textual note, suggests, to fill the gap confessedly left by Mommsen’s emendation, a reading which would be translated “that my person should be sacrosanct.”

[58] Augustus here characteristically avoids the name of Lepidus. The latter “in the confusion and tumult had seized the supreme pontificate,” cf. Livy, _Ep._ CXVII, “by craft,” cf. Velleius II, 63; “Antony transferred the election of the pontifex maximus from the people to the priests again, and through them initiated Lepidus, almost entirely neglecting the customs of the fathers.” Cf. Dio, XLIV, 53. Lepidus dying in 741, cf. Dio, LIV, 27, Augustus entered upon the office Mar. 6, 742. Cf. C. I. L., I. p. 387. It was unlawful to deprive a living man of this office, cf. App., _B. C._, V, 131.

[59] October 12, 735. In C. I. L. I. p. 404, is found an inscription of that date: _Feriae ex senatus consulto, quod eo die imp. Cæsar Augustus ex transmarinis provincis urbem intravit araq(ue) Fortunae reduci constituta._ There are also gold and silver coins (Eckhel VI, 100; Cohen, _Aug._ nos. 102-108) with the inscription, _Fortunae reduci, Cæsari Augusto senatus populusque Romanus_, Dio, LIV, 10, tells that Augustus after having arranged matters in Sicily, Greece, Asia and Syria, returned to Rome, and that many honors were decreed to him, but that he would accept none of them, “but that an altar should be consecrated to Fortune the Restorer, that the day should be accounted a feast day, and that it should be called the Augustalia.”

The location near the Porta Capena was chosen, because it was through that gate Augustus would enter the city, coming by the Appian Way from Brundisium. The altar was dedicated on Dec. 15, C. I. L. X, 8375. Cf. Dio, LI, 19; App. _B. C._ II, 106.

[60] Dio, LIV, 10, relates that in this year there were great tumults in connection with the consular comitia, and no election was possible. In consequence of this the senate sent messengers to Augustus urging him to deal with the trouble. Q. Lucretius, one of the delegates, was named consul by Augustus on the spot where they met. It is Mommsen’s idea (_R. G._, p. 48) that the story of Dio, and the statement of Augustus relate to the same event, and that Augustus was not willing to admit that so late in his reign, such disturbances could be, and that he therefore conveys the impression that what was really an appeal for aid was rather an embassy of honor. This Mommsen thinks quite in keeping with the general character and method of Augustus. Bormann, on the other hand (_Schr. Nach._, p. 29), sees no conflict in the two accounts. He believes that Dio narrates truthfully enough an earlier deputation sent to Augustus, possibly at Athens, some time before his return, and that Lucretius was named consul there by Augustus. Then, some time later, the deputation of honor, as recorded in the inscription, was sent into Campania.

[61] That this annual sacrifice was instituted July 4, 741, appears from C. I. L., I, 395. _Feriae ex. s. c. quod eo die ara Pacis Augustae in campo Martio constituta est Nerone et Varo cos._ Cf. Fasti of Præneste, Jan. 30, C. I. L., I, 313, for day of the actual dedication; also Ovid, _Fasti_ I, 709; Dio, LIV, 25.

This altar was probably on the Flaminian Way by which Augustus returned from Gaul.

[62] The exact conditions necessary for the closing of the temple, viz., “peace won by victories” were first made known in 1882 by this perfected text of the _Res Gestæ_.

[63] Cf. Livy, I, 19; Varro, V, 165. The temple of Janus (or as the Romans called it, Janus, without the word temple,) (cf. Latin text and Livy, l. c., and Horace, Carm, IV, 15, 9,) had been closed first under Numa and again after the first Punic War.

[64] Augustus first closed it in 725, after Actium. Cf. Livy, l. c.; Dio, LI, 20; Vell., II, 38; Victor, _De Viris Ill._, LXXIX, 6; Plut. _De Fort. Rom._, 9; Oros., VI, 20, 8. C. I. L. I, p. 384, supplies the day, January 11. In 728 it was opened again, on account of the war with the Cantabri. Cf. Dio, LIII, 26, Plutarch, l. c. A second time it was closed in 729, cf. Dio, l. c.; Oros., VI, 21, 1. The time of its next opening cannot be determined; but in all probability it was reopened that very year, on account of the Arabian campaign. Dio, LIV, 36, records that in 744 the Senate decreed that it should be closed, but that a Dacian rebellion interfered. But Dio must be mistaken, for Drusus was then in the midst of his German campaign. But after the campaigns of Drusus and Tiberius in Germany, closed in 746, up to 753, when Gaius Cæsar started for Armenia, the temple might well have been closed. Parts of Dio are lost here, which may have mentioned such closing. The birth of Jesus Christ, 749, falls in this period of peace. Cf. Milton’s _Nativity Hymn_. When it was opened for the third time cannot be said. Tacitus says it was opened when Augustus was an old man. But it can hardly have remained shut after the opening of the Armenian war in 753. Augustus was then sixty-two years old. That age may possibly suit the expression of Tacitus. Horace _Ep._, II, 1, 255, and _Carm._, IV, 15, 9, mentions the closing of the temple. Suetonius, _Aug._ 22, says: “Janus Quirinus, which had been shut twice only, from the era of the building of the city to his own time, he closed thrice in a much shorter period, having established universal peace both by sea and land.” This is almost a literal transcript of the _Res Gestæ_.

[65] Gaius and Lucius, the sons of Agrippa and Julia, the daughter of Augustus, were born, the one in 734 (Dio, LIV, 8), the other in 737 (Dio, LIV, 18) and were adopted by their grandfather immediately after the birth of the latter. Dio, LIV, 18, says: “Lucius and his brother Gaius, Augustus at once adopted and made heirs of the empire, without waiting till they grew to manhood, in order that he might be the more secure against conspiracies.” The will of Augustus (Suet. _Tib._ 23), speaks much as this chapter does of the death of the two Cæsars: “Since harsh fortune has snatched from me my sons, Gaius and Lucius, let Tiberius Cæsar be heir to two-thirds of my estate.” Suetonius, _Aug._ 26, says that Augustus took his twelfth and thirteenth consulships, for the purpose of introducing these two boys into the forum.

[66] Dio, LV, 9, under the year 748 writes that these lads were wild and insolent and that the younger, then eleven years old, actually proposed to the people to make Gaius consul. Augustus appeared very angry at this, saying it would be a public calamity for the consulship to be borne by one of less age than that at which he himself had assumed it, viz., twenty. Gaius was, however, designated consul in 749, and Lucius in 752. Cf. Tac. _Ann._ I, 3; a coin of Rome has on one side: _Cæsar Augustus, divi. f., pater patriæ_; on the other: _C. L. Cæsares, Augusti f., cos. desig., princ. juvent._ (Eckhel VI, 171). This must have been struck between Feb. 5, 752, when Augustus received the title _pater patriæ_, and January 1, 754, when Gaius entered upon his actual consulship. Cf. C. I. L. III, n. 323, and VI, 900.

Lucius died, Aug. 20, 755, and so did not reach the consulship to which he had been elected. Gaius died in 757. Cf. Dio, LV, II; C. I. L. I. p. 472.

[67] Cf. Dio, LV, 9; C. I. L. I, p. 286 and 565.

[68] Dio, LV, 12, says: “The bodies of Lucius and Gaius were carried to Rome by military tribunes, and the chief men of each city; and the golden (sic) shields and spears, which they had received from the knights when they assumed the _toga virilis_, were suspended in the curia.”