sums from his own means, and how when aught was bequeathed to him by men with children he restored it all to those children.  What oblivion is dark enough to bury all this?  It was for this, therefore, I say, that you naturally made him your head and a father of the people, that you decked him with many marks of esteem and numerous consulships and finally declared him a hero and published him as immortal.  Hence we ought not either to mourn for him, but to give his body back now in due time to Nature, and to glorify his spirit, as that of a god, forever.”

[-42-] This was what Tiberius read.  Directly after, the same men as before took up the couch and carried it through the triumphal gateway, according to the senate’s decree.  There were present and took part in carrying him out the senate and the equestrian class, the women of his family, and the pretorian guard; and nearly everybody else in the city was in attendance.  When the body had been placed on the pyre in the Campus Martius, all the priests marched about it first; and then the knights, all the magistrates and others, and the heavy-armed force for garrison duty ran around it; and they cast upon it all the triumphal decorations which any of them had ever received from him for any deed of valor.  Next the centurions took torches, conformably to a decree of the senate, and kindled the fire from beneath.  So it was consumed, and an eagle released from it flew aloft appearing to bear his spirit into heaven.  When this had been accomplished most of those present departed; but Livia remained on the spot for five days in company with the most prominent knights, and gathered his bones, which she placed in the monument.

The show of grief required by law was prolonged [-43-] only for a few days by the men, but by the women, according to a decree, for a whole year.  Real grief not in the hearts of many at the time, but later felt by all the citizens.  Augustus had been accessible to all and was accustomed to aid many persons in the matter of money.  He used to bestow honors scrupulously upon his friends and delighted exceedingly to have them speak frankly.  One instance, in addition to what has been told, occurred in the case of Athenodorus.  The latter was once brought into his room in a covered litter, as if it were some woman, and leaping from it sword in hand asked:  “Aren’t you afraid that some one may come in this way and kill you?” Instead of being angry Augustus thanked him for his suggestion.

The people consequently were wont to recall these traits of his, and how he did not get blindly enraged at those who injured him as well as how he kept faith with even such as were unworthy of it.  There was a robber named Corocotta, who flourished in Spain, and the emperor was in the first place so angry at him that he offered twenty-five myriads to the man that captured him alive.  Later the robber came to him of his own accord, and he not only did him no harm but made him richer by the amount of money