Augustus (IX), M. lunius M.F.  Silanus. (B.C. 25 = a. u. 729.)

Augustus (X), C. Norbanus C.F.C.N.  Flaccus. (B.C. 24 = a. u. 730.)

Augustus (XI), Cn.  Calpurnius Cn.F.Cn.N.  Piso. (B.C. 23 = a. u. 731.)

(BOOK 53, BOISSEVAIN.)

[B.C. 28 (a. u. 726)]

[-1-] The following year Caesar held office for the sixth time and did everything according to the usage approved from very early times, delivering to Agrippa his colleague the bundles of rods which belonged to an incumbent of the consulship, while he himself used the others.  On completing his term he had the oath administered according to ancestral custom.  Whether he ever did this again I do not know.  Agrippa he honored exceedingly, even going so far as to give him his niece in marriage and to provide him with a tent similar to his own whenever they went on a campaign together; and the watchword was given by both of them.  At that particular time besides attending to the ordinary run of business he finished the taking of the census, in which he was called Princeps Senatus, as had been deemed proper under the real democracy.  He further completed and dedicated the temple of Apollo on the Palatine, the precinct surrounding it, and the stores of books.  And he celebrated in company with Agrippa the festival in honor of the victory won at Actium, which had been voted:  in it he had the horse-race between boys and between men of the nobility.  This celebration every five years, as long as it lasted, was in charge of the four priesthoods in succession,—­I mean the pontifices and augurs and the so-called septemviri and quindecimviri.  A gymnastic contest was also held at that time,—­a wooden stadium being built in the Campus Martius,—­and there was an armed combat of captives.  This continued for several days without a break, in spite of Caesar’s falling sick; for even so Agrippa filled his place.

[-2-] Caesar spent some of his private means upon the festivals, and when money was needed for the public treasury he borrowed it and supplied the want.  For the management of this branch of the service he ordered two annual magistrates to be chosen from among the ex-praetors.  To the populace he distributed a quadruple allowance of grain and made a present of money to some of the senators.  For many of them had grown so poor as not to be willing to be even aedile on account of the great expenses.  Moreover the courts which belonged to the aedileship were to be assigned to the praetors as had been the custom, the more important to the praetor urbanus and the others to the praetor peregrinus.  Again, he himself appointed the praetor urbanus, as he often did subsequently.  The pledges deposited with the public treasury before the battle of Actium he released, save any that involved house property, and burned the old acknowledgments of those who owed the State anything.  Egyptian rites he did not admit within the pomerium, but paid great attention to the