upon others:  are not yourself unbridled while reproving others:  when, instead, your life in every way without exception is precisely like theirs?  Be of good cheer, for you have in your own hands a great safeguard by never wronging another.  And believe me when I tell you that you will never be the object of hatred or plots.  Since this is so, you must quite inevitably lead a pleasant life.  What is pleasanter, what is more conducive to prosperity, than to enjoy in a rightful way all the blessings among men and to have the power of granting them to others?

[-40-] “With this in mind, together with all the rest that I have told you, heed my advice and let not that fortune slip which has chosen you out of all and set you at the head of all.  If you would choose the substance of monarch but fear the name of ‘kingdom’ as accursed, then refrain from taking possession of the latter and be satisfied to employ merely the title of ‘Caesar.’  If you need any further appellations, they will give you that of Imperator, as they gave it to your father.  They will reverence you also by still another name, so that you may obtain all the advantages of a kingdom without the disfavor that attaches to the term itself.”

[-41-] Maecenas thus brought his speech to an end.  Caesar thanked them both heartily for their many ideas, the exhaustiveness of their exposition, and their frankness.  He rather inclined, however, to the proposition of Maecenas.  Yet he did not immediately put into practice all of the other’s suggestions, for fear that he might meet with some setback if he wanted to reform men in multitudes.  So he made some changes for the better at once and others later.  He left some things also for those who should come to the head of the State afterward to do, as might be found more opportune in the progress of time.  Agrippa cooeperated with him in all his projects quite zealously, in spite of having stated a contrary opinion, just as if he had been the one to propose the plan.  Caesar did this and what I have recorded earlier in the narrative in that year when he was consul for the seventh time, and added the title of Imperator.  I do not refer to the title anciently granted some persons for victories,—­this he received many times before and many times later for his deeds themselves, so that he had the name of imperator twenty-one times,—­but to the other one which signifies supreme power, just as they had voted to his father Caesar and to the children and descendants of the same.

[-42-] After this he entered upon a censorship with Agrippa and besides setting aright some other business he investigated the senate.  Many knights and many foot-soldiers, too, who did not deserve it were in the senate as a result of the civil wars, so that the total of that body amounted to a thousand.  These he wished to remove, but did not himself erase any of their names, urging them to become their own judges out of the consciousness of their family and