tore down or erased the memorials that had lent Antony distinction.  They declared the day on which the latter had been born accursed and forbade the employment of the surname Marcus by any one of his kin.  His death was announced during a part of the year when Cicero, the son of Cicero, was consul; and on ascertaining this some believed it had come to pass not without divine direction, since the consul’s father had owed his death chiefly to Antony.  Then they voted to Caesar additional crowns and many thanksgivings, and granted him among other rights authority to conduct a triumph over the Egyptians also.  For neither previously nor at that time did they mention by name Antony and the rest of the Romans who had been vanquished with him, and so imply that it was proper to hold a celebration over them.  The day on which Alexandria was captured they declared fortunate and directed that for the years to come it should be taken as the starting-point of enumeration by the inhabitants of that town.[72] Also Caesar was to hold the tribunician power for life, to have the right to defend such as called upon him for help both within the pomerium and outside to the distance of eight half-stadia (a privilege possessed by none of the tribunes), as also to judge appealed cases; and a vote of his, like the vote of Athena,[73] was to be cast in all the courts.  In the prayers in behalf of the people and the senate petitions should be offered for him alike by the priests and by the priestesses.  They also ordered that at all banquets, not only public but private also, all should pour a libation to him.  These were the resolutions passed at that time.

[B.C. 29 (a. u. 725)]

[-20-] When he was consul for the fifth time with Sextus Apuleius, they ratified all his acts by oath on the very first day of January.  And when the letter came regarding the Parthians, they decreed that he should have a place in hymns along with the gods, that a tribe should be named “Julian” after him, that he should wear the triumphal crown during the progress of all the festivals, that the senators who had participated in his victory should take part in the procession wearing purple-bordered togas, and that the day on which he should enter the city should be glorified by sacrifices by the entire population and be held ever sacred.  They further agreed that he might choose priests beyond the specified number, as many and as often as he should wish.  This custom was handed down from that decision and the numbers have increased till they are boundless:  hence I need go into no particulars about the multitude of such officials.  Caesar accepted most of the honors (save only a few):  but that all the population of the city should meet him he particularly requested might not occur.  Yet he was pleased most of all and more than at all the other decrees by the fact that the senators closed the gates of Janus, implying that all their wars had ceased,—­and took the “augury of health,” [74] which had