Many things of a portentous nature had come to pass even before that time (such as olive oil spouting beside the Tiber), and many, also, precisely then.  The tent of Romulus was burned as a result of some ritual which the pontifices were performing in it; a statue of Virtus, standing before some of the gates, fell upon its face; and certain persons rendered inspired by the Mother of the Gods declared that the goddess was angry with them.  On this point the Sibylline books were consulted.  They made the same statements and prescribed that the statue be taken down to the sea and purified with water from it.  In obedience to the order the goddess went very far indeed out into the surges, where she remained an extremely long time and returned only quite late,—­her action causing the Romans no little fear, so that they did not recover courage until four palm trees grew up round about her temple and in the Forum.

[-44-] Besides these occurrences at the time Caesar married Livia.  She was the daughter of Livius Drusus, who had been among those proscribed by the tablet and had committed suicide after the defeat in Macedonia, and the wife of Nero, whom she had accompanied in his flight, as has been related.  She was also in the sixth month with child from him.  When Caesar accordingly hesitated and enquired of the pontifices whether it was permissible to wed her while pregnant, they answered that if the origin of the foetus were doubtful, the marriage should be put off, but if it were definitely admitted, nothing prevented an immediate consummation.  Perhaps they really found this among the ordinances of the forefathers, but certainly they would have said so even had they not found it.  The woman was given in marriage by her husband himself, as some father might do.  And the following incident occurred at the marriage feast.  One of the prattling boys, such as women frequently keep about them naked to play with,[48] on seeing Livia reclining in one place with Caesar and Nero in another with some man, went up to her and said:  “What are you doing here, mistress?  For your husband,” pointing him out, “is reclining over there.”  After these events, when the woman went to live with Caesar, she gave birth to Claudius Drusus Nero.  Caesar took him and sent him to his father, making this entry in the records, that Caesar returned to its father Nero the child borne by Livia, his own wife.  Nero died not long after and left Caesar himself as guardian to this boy and to Tiberius:  the populace had a good deal to say about this, among other things that the prosperous have children in three months; and this saying passed into a proverb.

[-45-] At just about the same time that this was going on in the city Bogud the Moor sailed to Spain, acting either on instructions from Antony or on his own motion, and did much damage, receiving also considerable injury in return:  meantime the people of his own land in the neighborhood of Tingi rose against him, and so he evacuated Spain but failed to win back his own domain.  For the adherents of Caesar in Spain and Bocchus came to the aid of the rebels and proved too much for him.  Bogud departed to join Antony, while Bocchus forthwith took possession of his kingdom, and this act was afterward confirmed by Caesar.  The Tingitanians were given citizenship.