he furthermore accorded him the solemnity of a triumph.  Augustus himself did not wish to hold it, but obtained the privilege of a horse-race perpetually upon his birthday.  He enlarged the pomerium and renamed the month called Sextilis, Augustus.  The people generally wanted September to be so named, because he had been born in it, but he preferred the other month, in which he had first been appointed consul and had conquered in many great battles.  It was in these things that he took pride.

[-7-] The death of Maecenas caused him grief.  He had enjoyed many kind services at his hands, for which reason he had entrusted him, though but a knight, with the care of the City for a long time, but especially was his ministry of use when the emperor’s passion became nearly uncontrollable.  Maecenas was then able to banish his anger and to lead him into a gentler frame of mind.  Here is an instance.  Maecenas once found his patron holding court, and seeing that would undoubtedly condemn many persons to death, he undertook to push through the bystanders and get Finding this impossible, he wrote on a tablet:  “Pray desist now, executioner.”  Making as if it contained something different, he threw it into the lap of Augustus, and the latter imposed no death sentences but immediately rose and left.  The emperor was not displeased at such hints but rather glad of them, because whatever excess of anger he felt by reason of his own nature and the press of affairs he was able to tone down with the aid of his friend’s frank advice.—­This also is a very great proof of Maecenas’s excellence, that he made himself liked by Augustus, in spite of resisting his projects, and pleased all the people.  Though he had tremendous influence with the emperor, so that he could bestow offices and honors upon many men, he did not lose his head but continued to the end of his life in the equestrian class.  For all these reasons Augustus missed him greatly, and he was affected by the fact that his minister, though irritated about his own wife, had left him as his heir and had put all his property, save a very small amount, in his hands to give to his friends or not, as he saw fit.  Such was the character of Maecenas and such his treatment of Augustus.  He was the first to construct a swimming pool of warm water in the city and the first to devise signs for letters, to facilitate speed,—­a system which, through Aquila [4] a freedman, he taught to a number.

[B.C. 7 (a. u. 747)]

[-8-] Tiberius on the first day that he began the consulship with Gnaeus Piso convened the senate in the Octavium, because it was outside the pomerium.  After assigning himself the duty of repairing the temple of Concord, in order that he might inscribe upon it his own name and that of Drusus, he held his triumph, and in company with his mother dedicated the so-called Precinct of Livia.  He himself entertained the senate on the Capitol, and she the women privately.  Not much later, as there was some disturbance in Germany,