Plautianus with the consular honors and afterward introduced him to the senate and appointed him consul, proclaiming that he was entering the consulship the second time.  In imitation of him the same thing was done in other instances.  Caesar, accordingly, arranged affairs in general in the city to suit his taste, and gave money to the soldiers, to some what had been voted from the funds prescribed, and to the rest individually from his private funds, as the story went, but in reality from the public store.

In this way and for the reasons mentioned did the soldiers receive the money on that occasion.  But some of them got a wrong idea of the matter and thought it was compulsory for absolutely all the citizen forces at all times to be given the twenty-five hundred denarii, if they went to Rome under arms.  For this reason the followers of Severus who had come to the city to overthrow Julianus behaved most terrifyingly both to their leader himself and to us, while demanding it.  And they were won over by Severus with two hundred and fifty denarii, while people in general were ignorant what claim was being set up.

[-47-] Caesar while giving the soldiers the money also expressed to them his fullest and sincerest thanks.  He did not even venture to enter the senate-chamber without a guard of them.  To the senate he showed gratitude, but it was all fictitious and pretended.  For he was accepting as if it were a favor received from willing hands what he had attained by violence.  And they actually took great credit to themselves for their behavior, as if they had given him the office voluntarily; and moreover they granted to him whom previously they had not even wished to choose consul the right after his term expired to be honored, as often as he should be in camp, above all those who were consuls at one time or another.  To him on whom they had threatened to inflict penalties, because he had gathered forces on his own responsibility without the passing of any vote, they assigned the duty of collecting others:  and to the man for whose disenfranchisement and overthrow they had ordered Decimus to fight with Antony they added Decimus’s legions.  Finally he obtained the guardianship of the city, so that he was able to do everything that he wished according to law, and he was adopted into Caesar’s family in the regular way, as a consequence changing his name.  He had, as some think, been even before this accustomed to call himself Caesar, as soon as this name was bequeathed to him together with the inheritance.  He was not, however, exact about his title, nor did he use the same one in dealing with everybody until at this time he had ratified it in accordance with ancestral custom, and was thus named, after his famous predecessor, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus.  For it is the custom when a person is adopted for him to take most of his appellation from his adopter but to keep one of his previous names slightly altered in form.  This is the status of the matter, but I shall call him not Octavianus but Caesar, because this name has prevailed among all such as secure dominion over the Romans.  He took another one in addition, namely Augustus, and therefore the subsequent emperors assume it.  That one will be given when it comes up in the history, but until then the title Caesar will be sufficient to show that Octavianus is indicated.