Dio's Rome, Volume 4 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 411 pages of information about Dio's Rome, Volume 4.

Dio's Rome, Volume 4 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 411 pages of information about Dio's Rome, Volume 4.

[-35-] While these events were occurring Augustus took a census, reckoning in all the property that belonged to him, as an individual might do, and also making a list of the senate.  As he saw that many were not always present at the meetings he ordered that even less than four hundred might constitute a quorum for passing decrees.  Previously that had been the minimum number for ratifying any measure.  The senate and the people again contributed money to be spent on images of himself, but he would erect no such likeness, and only set up representations of the Public Health, of Concord, and of Peace.  The citizens were always collecting money for statues to him, on the slightest excuse; and at last they ceased paying it privately, as before, but would come to him on the first day of the year and give, some more, some less.  He, after adding as much or more again, would return it, not only to the senators but to all the rest.  I have also heard the story that on one day of the year, following some oracle or dream, he would assume the guise of a beggar and would accept money from those who passed.  This, whether trustworthy or not, is a prevailing tradition.

That year he gave Julia in marriage to Tiberius, and his sister Octavia dying, he caused her body to lie in state in the hero-shrine of Julius; on this occasion, too, he had a curtain over the corpse.  He himself delivered there the funeral speech and Drusus, having changed his senatorial dress, had a place on the platform, for the mourning was a public affair.  Her body was carried in procession by her sons-in-law:  not all the honors voted to her were accepted by Augustus.

At this same time the first priest of Jupiter since [-36-] Merula was appointed; and the quaestors were ordered to pay careful heed to the decrees passed from time to time, because the tribunes and the aediles, who had previously been entrusted with this business, transacted it through their assistants, and as a result some mistakes and confusion took place.

It was voted, moreover, that the temple of Janus Geminus, which was open, should be closed, on the assumption that wars had ceased.

[B.C. 10 (a. u. 744)]

It was not closed, however, for the Dacians crossing the Ister on the ice took the crops of Pannonia as booty, and the Dalmatians revolted at the imposition of taxes.  Against the latter Tiberius was sent from Gaul, whither he had gone in company with Augustus, and he restored order.  The nations of the Celtae, and especially the Chatti, were partly weakened and partly subdued by Drusus; the tribe mentioned had gone to join the Sugambri, having abandoned their own country, which the Romans had given them to dwell in.  The emperor delayed in Lugdunis, where he could keep a sharp watch on affairs, as it was so near the Celtae.  The victors returned to Rome with Augustus, assumed whatever dignities had been voted them by the senate, and performed such other duties as belonged to them.—­These events took place in the consulship of Iullus and Fabius Maximus.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Dio's Rome, Volume 4 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.