The Po, which they call the monarch of rivers that cleave the soil of Italy, known by the name Eridanus, had its waters let into a very broad excavation, on the command of the emperor Augustus.  A seventh division of the channel of this river flows through the center of the state, affording at its mouth a most satisfactory harbor, and was formerly believed (my authority is Dio) to be an entirely safe anchorage for a fleet of two hundred and fifty ships. (From the Latin of Jordan.)

When the famine at last had subsided, he conducted a horse-race in the name of Germanicus, who was son of Drusus, and in the name of his brother.  On this occasion an elephant fought a rhinoceros, and a knight who had once held a prominent position on account of wealth contended in single combat.

And he found himself sinking under the burden of old age and physical weakness, so that he could not transact business with all the persons that needed his services, he delivered to three ex-consuls the care of the embassies that were constantly arriving from peoples and kings; each one of these officials separately was empowered to give any such delegation a hearing and to transmit an answer to them, save in such cases as he and the senate needed to pass upon finally.  Other questions continued to be investigated and decided by the emperor himself with the help of his cabinet.

[-34-] ... however, among the first, but among the last he declared, in order that everybody might be permitted to hold an individual opinion, and no one of them be obliged to abandon his own ideas because he felt it obligatory to agree with his sovereign; and he would often help the magistrates try cases.  Also, as often as the consulting judges held different views, his vote was reckoned only as equal to that of any one else.  It was at this time that Augustus allowed the senate to try the majority of cases without his being present, and he no longer frequented the assemblies of the people.  Instead, he had the previous year personally appointed all who were to hold office, because there were factional outbreaks:  this year and those following he merely posted a kind of bulletin and made known to the plebs and to the people what persons he favored.  Yet he had so much strength for managing hostile campaigns that he journeyed to Ariminum in order that he might be able to give from close at hand all necessary advice in regard to the Dalmatians and Pannonians.  Prayers were offered at his departure and sacrifices upon his return, as if he had come back from some hostile territory.  This was what was done in Rome.