At this time, in the consulship of Cornelius and Valerius Messala, earthquakes of ill omen occurred and the Tiber tore away the bridge so that the City was under water for seven days.  There was an eclipse of the sun, and famine set in.  This same year Agrippa was enrolled among the iuvenes, but obtained none of the same privileges as his brother.  The senators attended the horse-races separately and the knights also separately from the remainder of the populace, as is done nowadays.  And since the noblest families did not show themselves inclined to give their daughters for the service of Vesta, a law was passed that the daughters of freedmen might likewise be consecrated.  Many contended for the honor, and so they drew lots in the senate in the presence of their fathers; no priestess, however, was appointed from this class.

[-23-] The soldiers were displeased at the small size of the prizes for the wars that had taken place at this period and no one was willing to carry arms for longer than the specified term of his service.  It was therefore voted that five thousand denarii be given to members of the pretorian guard when they had ended sixteen, and three thousand to the other soldiers when they had completed twenty years’ service.  Twenty-three legions were being supported at that time, or, as others say, twenty-five, of citizen soldiers.  Only nineteen of them now remain.  The Second (Augusta) is the one that winters in Upper Britain.  Of the Third there are three divisions,—­the Gallic, in Phoenicia; the Cyrenaic, in Arabia; the Augustan, in Numidia.  The Fourth. (Scythian) is in Syria, the Fifth (Macedonian), in Dacia.  The Sixth is divided into two parts, of which the one (Victrix) is in Lower Britain, and the other (Ferrata) is in Judaea.  The soldiers of the Seventh, generally called Claudians, are in Upper Moesia.  Those of the Eighth, Augustans, are in Upper Germany.  Those of the Tenth are both in Upper Pannonia (Legio Gemina) and in Judaea.  The Eleventh, in Lower Moesia, is the Claudian.  This name two legions received from Claudius because they had not fought against him in the insurrection of Camillus.  The Twelfth (Fulminata) is in Cappadocia:  the Thirteenth (Gemina) in Dacia:  the Fourteenth (Gemina) in Upper Pannonia:  the Fifteenth (Apollinaris) in Cappadocia.  The Twentieth, called both Valeria and Victrix, is also in Upper Britain.  These, I believe, together with those that have the title of the Twenty second[15] and winter in Upper Germany Augustus took in charge and kept; and this I say in spite of the fact that they are by no means called Valerians by all and do not themselves use the title any longer.  These are preserved from the Augustan legions.  Of the rest some have been scattered altogether and others were mixed in with different legions by Augustus himself and by the other emperors, from which circumstance they are thought to have been called Gemina.