might bathe free of charge; and he gave Augustus certain lands for this purpose.  The latter not only rendered these public property, but distributed to the people also a hundred denarii apiece, with the explanation that Agrippa had ordered it.  He had inherited most of the deceased’s property, among the articles of which was the Hellespontine Chersonese, which had come I know not how into the possession of Agrippa.  The emperor felt his loss for a very long time and therefore caused the populace to hold him in honor.  A posthumous son born to him he called Agrippa.  However, he did not allow any of the citizens to omit any of the ancestral customs (although none of the more prominent men wished to present himself for the festivals) and he personally superintended the gladiatorial combats.  They were often given, too, in his absence.—­This demise of Agrippa was not only a private loss to his own household, but a public loss to all the Romans, as was shown by the fact that portents occurred on this occasion as great as were usually seen before the most tremendous disasters.  Owls gathered in the capital and a bolt of lightning descended upon the house at Albanum, where the consuls reside during the sacrifices.[11] The star called comet stood for several days over the City and was finally dissolved into flashes of light.  Many buildings in the City were destroyed by fire, among them the tent of Romulus, which was set ablaze by crows dropping upon it burning meat from some altar.—­These were the matters of interest connected with Agrippa.

[-30-] After this Augustus was chosen supervisor and corrector of morals for another five years,—­this also he received for a limited period as he had the monarchy,—­and he ordered the senators to burn incense as often as they had a sitting, and not to come to his residence:  the first, that they might show reverence to the gods, and the second, that they might have no difficulty in convening.  Inasmuch as very few became candidates for the tribuneship on account of its power having been abolished, he made a law that magistrates should each nominate one of the knights who possessed not less than twenty-five myriads; the people should then choose from these the number lacking, and if the men desired to be senators afterward, well and good; otherwise they should return again to the rank of knights.

The province of Asia also stood very greatly in need of some assistance on account of earthquakes, and he therefore paid into the public treasury from his own resources their annual tribute and assigned them a governor for two years chosen by lot and not arbitrarily selected.

Apuleius and Maecenas were at one time bitterly reviled in some court of adultery, not because they had themselves behaved wantonly but because they had actively aided the man on trial; thereupon Augustus entered the courtroom and sat in the praetor’s chair:  he did nothing violent, but simply forbade the accuser to insult his relatives or friends, and then rose and left the place.  For this action and others the senators honored him with statues, paid for by private subscription, and by giving bachelors and spinsters the right to behold spectacles with other people and to attend banquets on his birthday.  Neither of these privileges was previously permitted them.