[B.C. 19 (a. u. 735)]
[-10-] The consul that[2] year was Gaius Sentius. When it was found necessary that a colleague be appointed to hold office with him,—for Augustus again refused to accept the post which was being saved for him,—an uprising once more broke out in Rome and assassinations occurred, so that the senators voted Sentius a guard. When he expressed himself as opposed to using it, they sent envoys to Augustus, each with two lictors. As soon as the emperor learned this and felt assured that nothing but evil would come of it, he did not adopt an attitude like his former one toward them but appointed consul from among the envoys themselves Quintus Lucretius, though this man’s name had been posted among the proscribed, and he hastened to Rome himself. For this and his other actions while absent from the city many honors of all sorts were voted none of which he would accept, save the founding of a temple to Fortuna Redux,[3] (this being the name they applied to her), and that the day on which he arrived should be numbered among the thanksgiving days and be called Augustalia. Since even then the magistrates and the rest made preparations to go out to meet him, he entered the city by night; and on the following day he gave Tiberius the rank of the ex-praetors and allowed Drusus to become a candidate for offices five years earlier than custom allowed. The quarrelsome behavior of the people during his absence did not accord at all with their conduct, influenced by fear, when he was present; he was accordingly invited and elected to be commissioner of morals for five years, held the authority of the censors for the same length of time and that of the consuls for life, being allowed to use the twelve rods always and everywhere and to sit in the chair of office in the midst of the consuls of any year. After voting these measures they begged him to set right all these matters and to enact what laws he liked. And whatever ordinances might be composed by him they called from that very moment leges Augustae and desired to take an oath that they would abide by them. He accepted their principal propositions, believing them to be necessary, but absolved them from the requirement of an oath. If they should vote for a measure that suited them, he knew well that they would observe it even if they made no agreement to that effect. Otherwise they would not pay any attention to it, even if they should take ten thousand pledges to secure it.—Augustus did this. Of the aediles one voluntarily resigned his office by reason of poverty.
[-11-] Agrippa on being sent at this time, as described from Sicily to Rome, transacted whatever business was urgent and was later assigned to the Gauls. The inhabitants there were at war among themselves and were being harshly used by the Celtae. After settling those troubles he went over to Spain. For the Cantabri, who had been captured alive in the war and had been sold, severally killed their masters,