When I was nineteen I collected an army on my own account and at my own expense, by the help of which I restored the republic to liberty, which had been enslaved by the tyranny of a faction; for which services the Senate, in complimentary decrees, added my name to the roll of their House in the consulship of Gaius Pansa and Aulus Hirtius [BC 43], giving me at the same time consular precedence in voting; and gave me imperium. It ordered me as pro-praetor “to see along with the consuls that the republic suffered no damage." Moreover, in the same year, both consuls having fallen, the people elected me consul and a triumvir for revising the constitution.

Those who killed my father I drove into exile, after a legal trial, in punishment of their crime, and afterwards when these same men rose in arms against the republic I conquered them twice in a pitched battle.  .

I had to undertake wars by land and sea, civil and foreign, all over the world, and when victorious I spared surviving citizens. Those foreign nations, who could safely be pardoned, I preferred to preserve rather than exterminate. About 500,000 Roman citizens took the military oath to me. Of these I settled out in colonies or sent back to their own towns, after their terms of service were over, considerably more than 300,000; and to them all I assigned lands purchased by myself or money in lieu of lands. I captured 600 ships, not counting those below the rating of triremes.

I twice celebrated an ovation, three times curule triumphs, and was twenty-nine times greeted as imperator. Though the Senate afterwards voted me several triumphs I declined them. I frequently also deposited laurels in the Capitol after performing the vows which I had taken in each war. For successful operations performed by myself or by my legates under my auspices by land and sea, the Senate fifty-three times decreed a supplication to the immortal gods. The number of days during which, in accordance with a decree of the Senate, supplication was offered amounted to 890. In my triumphs there were led before my chariot nine kings or sons of kings. I had been consul thirteen times at the writing of this, and am in the course of the thirty-seventh year of my tribunician power [AD. 13-14].

The Dictatorship offered me in my presence and absence by the Senate and people in the consulship of Marcus Marcellus and Lucius Arruntius [BC22] I declined to accept. I did not refuse at a time of very great scarcity of corn the commissionership of corn supply, which I administered in such a way that within a few days I freed the whole people from fear and danger. The consulship— either yearly or for life—then offered to me I declined to accept.

In the consulship of M. Vinicius and Q. Lucretius [BC19], of P. and Cn. Lentulus [BC18], and of Paullus Fabius Maximus and Q. Tubero [BC11], when the Senate and people of Rome unanimously agreed that I should be elected overseer of the laws and morals, with unlimited powers and without a colleague, I refused every office offered me which was contrary to the customs of our ancestors. But what the Senate at that time wished me to manage, I carried put in virtue of my tribunician power, and in this office I five times received at my own request a colleague from the Senate.

I was one of the triumvirate for the re-establishment of the constitution for ten consecutive years. I have been princeps senatus up to the day on which I write this for forty years. I am Pontifex Maximus, Augur, one of the fifteen commissioners for religion, one of the seven for sacred feasts, an Arval brother, a sodalis Titius, a fetial.

In my fifth consulship [BC29] I increased the number of the patricians by order of people and Senate. I three times made up the roll of the Senate, and in my sixth consulship [BC28] I took  a census of the people with M. Agrippa as thy colleague. I performed the lustrum after an interval of forty-one years; in which the number of Roman citizens entered on the census roll was 4,063,000. A second time with consular imperium I took the census by myself in the consulship of Gaius Censorinus and Gaius Asinius [BC8], in which the number of Roman citizens entered on the roll was 4,223,000. I took a third census with consular imperium, my son Tiberius Caesar acting as my colleague, in the consulship of Sextus Pompeius and Sextus Appuleius [AD14], in which the number of Roman citizens entered on the census roll was 4,937.000. By new laws passed I recalled numerous customs of our ancestors that were falling into desuetude in our time, and myself set precedents in many particulars for the imitation of posterity.

The Senate decreed that vows should be offered for my health by consuls and priests every fifth year. In fulfilment of these vows the four chief colleges of priests or the consuls often gave games in my lifetime. Also individually and by townships the people at large always offered sacrifices at all the temples for my health.

By a decree of the Senate my name was included in the ritual of the Salii; and it was ordained by a law that my person should be sacred and that I should have the tribunician power for the term of my natural life. I refused to become Pontifex Maximus in succession to my colleague during his life, though the people offered me that sacred office formerly held by my father. Some years later I accepted that sacred office on the death of the man who had availed himself of the civil disturbance to secure; such a multitude flocking to my election from all parts of Italy as is never recorded to have come to Rome before, in the consulship of P. Sulpicius and C. Valgius [6 March, BC12].

The Senate consecrated an altar to Fortuna Redux, near the temple of Honour and Virtue, by the Porta Capena, for my return, on which it ordered the Vestal Virgins to offer a yearly sacrifice on the day on which in the consulship of Q. Lucretius and M. Vinucius [BC19] I returned to the city from Syria, and gave that day the name Auguslalia from my cognomen [15 Dec.].

By a decree of the Senate at the same time part of the praetors and tribunes of the plebs, along with the consul Q. Lucretius and leading nobles, were despatched into Campania to meet me—an honour that up to this time has been decreed to no one else. When I returned to Rome from Spain and Gaul after successful operations in those provinces, in the consulship of Tiberius Nero and Publius Quintilius [BC13], the Senate voted that an altar to Pax Augusta should be consecrated for my return on the Campus Martius, upon which it ordered the magistrates and priests and Vestal Virgins to offer an annual sacrifice [30 Jan.].

Whereas the Ianus Quirinus, which our ancestors ordered to be closed when peace throughout the whole dominions of the Roman people by land and sea had been obtained by victories, is recorded to have been only twice shut before my birth since the foundation of the city, the Senate three times voted its closure during my principate.

My sons Gaius and Lucius Cassar, whom fortune snatched from me in their early manhood, in compliment to me, the Senate and Roman people designated consuls in their fifteenth year with a proviso that they should enter on that office after an interval of five years. From the day of their assuming the toga virilis the Senate decreed that they should take part in public business. Moreover, the Roman equites in a body gave each of them the title of Princeps Iuventutis, and presented them with silver shields and spears.

To the Roman plebs I paid 300 sesterces per head in virtue of my father's will; and in my own name I gave 400 apiece in my fifth consulship [BC29] from the sale of spoils of war; and a second time in my tenth consulship [BC24] out of my own private property I paid a bounty of 400 sesterces per man, and in my eleventh consulship [BC23] I measured out twelve distributions of corn, having purchased the grain from my own resources. In the twelfth year of my tribunician power [BC11], I for the third time gave a bounty of 400 sesterces a head. These largesses of mine affected never less than 50,200 persons.

In the eighteenth year of my tribunician power and my twelfth consulship [BC5] I gave 320,000 of the urban plebs sixty denarii a head. In the colonies of my soldiers, in my fifth consulship [BC29] I gave from the sale of spoils of war 1,000 sesterces a head; and among such settlers the number who received that triumphal largess amounted to about 120,000 men. In my thirteenth consulship [BC2] I gave 60 denarii apiece to the plebeians then in receipt of public corn; they amounted to somewhat more than 200,000 persons.

The money for the lands, which in my fourth consulship [BC30], and afterwards in the consulship of M. Crassus and Cn. Lentulus the augur [BC14], I assigned to the soldiers, I paid to the municipal towns. The amount was about 600,000,000 sesterces, which I paid for lands in Italy, and about 260,000,000 which I disbursed for lands in the provinces.

I was the first and only one within the memory of my own generation to do this of all who settled colonies in Italy and the provinces. And afterwards in the consulship of Tib. Nero and Cn. Piso [BC7], and again in the consulship of C. Antistius and D. Laelius bBC6], and of C. Calvisius and L. Pasienus [BC4], and of L. Lentulus and M. Messalla [BC3], and of L. Caninius and Q. Fabricius [BC2], to the soldiers, whom after their terms of service I sent back to their own towns, I paid good service allowances in ready money; on which I expended 400,000,000 sesterces as an act of grace.

I four times subsidised the aerarium from my own money, the sums which I thus paid over to the commissioners of the treasury amounting to 150,000,000 sesterces. And in the consulship of M. Lepidus and L. Arruntius [AD6], to the military treasury, which was established on my initiative for the payment of their good service allowance, to the soldiers who had served twenty years or more, I contributed from my own patrimony 170,000,000 sesterces.

From and after the year of the consulship of Gnaeus and Publius Lentulus [BC18], whenever the payment of the revenues were in arrear, I paid into the treasury from my own patrimony the taxes, whether due in corn or money, sometimes of 100,000 persons, sometimes of more.

I built the curia and Chalcidicum adjoining it, and the temples of Apollo on the Palatine with its colonnades, the temple of the divine Iulius, the Lupercal, the colonnade at the Flaminian circus, which I allowed to be called Octavia, from the name of the builder of the earlier one on the same site, the state box at the Circus Maximus, the temples of Jupiter Feretrius and of Jupiter Tonans on the Capitol, the temple of Quirinus, the temples of Minerva and of Juno the Queen, and of Jupiter Liberalis in the Aventine, the temple of the Lares at the head of the via Sacra, the temple of the divine Penates in the Velia, the temple of Youth, the temple of the Mater Magna on the Palatine.

The Capitolium and the Pompeian theatre—both very costly works—I restored without any inscription of my own name. Water conducts in many places that were decaying from age I repaired; and I doubled the aqueduct called the Aqua Marcia, by turning a new spring into its channel.

The Forum Iulium and the basilica, which was between the temple of Castor and the temple of Saturn, works begun and far advanced by my father) I completed; and when the same basilica was destroyed by fire, I began its reconstruction on an extended plan, to be inscribed with the names of my sons, and in case I do not live to complete it I have ordered it to be completed by my heirs.

In my sixth consulship [BC28], I repaired eighty-two temples of the gods in the city in accordance with a decree of the Senate, none being omitted which at that time stood in need of repair. In my seventh consulship [BC27] I constructed the Flaminian road from the city to Ariminum, and all the bridges except the Mulvian and Minucian.

On ground belonging to myself I built a temple to Mars Ultor and the Forum Augustum, with money arising from sale of war spoils. I built a theatre adjoining the temple of Apollo, on ground for the most part purchased from private owners, to be under the name of my son-in-law Marcus Marcellus. Offerings from money raised by sale of war-spoil I consecrated in the temple of Apollo, and in the temple of Vesta, and in the temple of Mars Ultor, which cost me about 100,000,000 sesterces. Thirty-five thousand pounds of gold, crown money contributed by the municipia and colonies of Italy for my triumphs, I refunded in my fifth consulship [BC29], and subsequently, as often as I was greeted Imperator, I refused to receive crown money, though the municipia and colonies had decreed it with as much warmth as before.

I three times gave a show of gladiators in my own name, and five times in the name of my sons and grandsons; in which shows about 10,000 men contended. I twice gave the people a show of athletes collected from all parts of the world in my own name, and a third time in the name of my grandson. I gave games in my own name four times, and representing other magistrates twenty-three times. In behalf of the quindecimviri, and as master of the college, with M. Agrippa as colleague, I gave the Secular games in the consulship of C. Furnius and C. Silanus [BC17]. In my thirteenth consulship [BC2], I gave for the first time the games of Mars which, since that time, the consuls have given in successive years. I gave the people wild-beast hunts, of African animals, in my own name and that of my sons and grandsons, in the circus and forum, and the amphitheatres twenty-six times, in which about 3,500 animals were killed.

I gave the people the spectacle of a naval battle on the other side of the Tiber, in the spot where now is the grove of the Caesars, the ground having been hollowed out to a length of 1,800 feet, and a breadth of 1,200 feet, in which thirty beaked ships, triremes or biremes, and a still larger number of smaller vessels contended. In these fleets, besides the rowers, there fought about three thousand men.

In the temples of all the states of the province of Asia, I replaced the ornaments after my victory, which he with whom I had fought had taken into his private possession from the spoliation of the temples. There were about eighty silver statues of me, some on foot, some equestrian, some in chariots, in various parts of the city. These I removed, and from the money thus obtained I placed golden offerings in the temple of Apollo in my own name and in that of those who had honoured me by the statues.

I cleared the sea of pirates. In that war I captured about 30,000 slaves, who had run away from their masters, and had borne arms against the republic, and handed them back to their owners to be punished. The whole of Italy took the oath to me spontaneously and demanded that I should be the leader in the war in which I won the victory off Actium. The provinces of the Gauls, the Spains, Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, took the same oath. Among those who fought under my standards were more than seven hundred Senators, eighty-three of whom had been, or have since been, consuls up to the time of my writing this, 170 members of the sacred colleges.

I extended the frontiers of all the provinces of the Roman people, which were bordered by tribes that had not submitted to our Empire. The provinces of the Gauls, and Spains and Germany, bounded by the Ocean from Gades to the mouth of the river Elbe, I reduced to a peaceful state. The Alps, from the district near the Adriatic to the Tuscan sea, I forced to remain peaceful without waging unprovoked war with any tribe. My fleet sailed through the Ocean from the mouth of the Rhine towards the rising sun, up to the territories of the Cimbri, to which point no Roman had penetrated, up to that time, either by land or sea. The Cimbri, and Charydes, and Semnones and other peoples of the Germans, belonging to the same tract of country, sent ambassadors to ask for the friendship of myself and the Roman people. By my command and under my auspices, two armies were marched into Ethiopia and Arabia, called Felix, nearly simultaneously, and large hostile forces of both these nations were cut to pieces in battle, and a large number of towns were captured. Ethiopia was penetrated as far as the town Nabata, next to Meroe. Into Arabia the army advanced into the territories of the Sabasi as far as the town Mariba.

I added Egypt to the Empire of the Roman people. When I might have made the Oreater Armenia a province after the assassination of its king Artaxes, I preferred, on the precedent of our ancestors, to hand over that kingdom to Tigranes, son of King Artavasdes, grandson of king Tigranes, by the hands of Tiberius Nero, who was then my stepson. The same nation being afterwards in a state of revolt and rebellion, I handed over to the government of King Ariobarzanes, son of Artabazus, king of the Medes, after it had been reduced by my son Gaius; and after his death to his son Artavasdes, upon whose assassination I sent Tigranes, a member of the royal family of the Armenians, into that kingdom. I recovered all the provinces on the other side of the Adriatic towards the East and Cyrenaic, which were by this time for the most part held by various kings, and before them Sicily and Sardinia which had been overrun by an army of slaves.

I settled colonies of soldiers in Africa, Sicily, Macedonia, both the Spains, Achaia, Asia, Syria, Gallia Narbonensis, Pisidia. Italy has twenty-eight colonies established under my auspices, which have in my lifetime become very densely inhabited and places of great resort.

A large number of military standards, which had been lost under other commanders, I recovered, after defeating the enemy, from Spain and Gaul and the Dalmatians. I compelled the Parthians to restore the spoils and standards of three Roman armies, and to seek as suppliants the friendship of the Roman people. These standards I laid up in the inner shrine belonging to the temple of Mars Ultor.

The tribes of the Pannonii, which before I was princeps an army of the Roman people never reached, having been subdued by Tiberius Nero, who was then my stepson and legate [BC11], I added to the Empire of the Roman people, and I extended the frontier of Illyricum to the bank of the river Danube. And when an army of the Daci crossed to the south of that river it was conquered and put to flight under my auspices; and subsequently my army, being led across the Danube, forced the tribes of the Daci to submit to the orders of the Roman people.

To me there were often sent embassies of kings from India, who had never before been seen in the camp of any Roman general. By ambassadors the Bastarnae and the Scythians and the kings of the Sarmatians, who live on both sides of the river Don, and the king of the Albani and of the Hiberi and of the Medes, sought our friendship.

Kings of the Parthians—Tiridates, and afterwards Phrates, son of King Phrates—fled to me for refuge; of the Medes Artavasdes; of the Adiabeni Artaxares; of the Britons Dumnobellaunus and Tim...; of the Marcomanni and Suebi ... Phraates, king of the Parthians, son of Orodes, sent all his sons and grandsons to me in Italy, not because he had been overcome in war, but seeking our friendship by means of his own sons as pledges. And a very large number of other nations experienced the good faith of the Roman people while I was princeps, with whom before that time there had been no diplomatic or friendly intercourse.

The nations of the Parthians and the chief men of the Medes by means of embassies sought and accepted from me kings of those peoples—the Parthians Vonones, son of King Phrates, grandson of King Orodes; the Medes Ariobarzanes, son of King Artavasdes, grandson of King Ariobarzanes.

In my sixth and seventh consulships [BC28, 27], when I had extinguished the flames of civil war, having by universal consent become possessed of the sole direction of affairs, I transferred the republic from my power to the will of the Senate and people of Rome. For which good service on my part I was by decree of the Senate called by the name of Augustus, and the door-posts of my house were covered with laurels in the name of the state, and a civic crown was fixed up over my door, and a golden shield was placed in the Curia Iulia, which it was declared by its inscription the Senate and people of Rome gave me in recognition of valour, clemency, justice, piety. After that time I took precedence of all in rank, but of power I had nothing more than those who were my colleagues in the several magistracies.

While I was administering my thirteenth consulship [BC2], the Senate and equestrian order and the Roman people with one consent greeted me as Father of my Country, and decreed that it should be inscribed in the vestibule of my house, and in the Senate house, and in the Forum Augustum, and under the chariot which Was there placed in my honour in accordance with a senatorial decree.

When I wrote this I was in my seventy-sixth year [AD 13-14].

 

 

THE END

 

OCTAVIUS CAESAR AUGUSTUS :

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE FOUNDER OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE