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II. The family was admitted to the senate by king Tarquinius Priscus among the
lesser clans [Plebeian families in the Senate enrolled in addition to the patricians. See:
Geer, American Journal of Philology, 55, 337ff.]; was later enrolled by Servius
Tullius among the patricians; in course of time returned to the ranks of the plebeians;
and after a long interval was restored to patrician rank by the Deified Julius. The first
of the house to be elected by the people to a magistracy was Gaius Rufus, who became
quaestor. He begot Gnaeus and Gaius, from whom two branches of the Octavian fimaily were
derived, of very different standing; for Gnaeus and all his scions in turn held the
highest offices, but Gaius and his progeny, whether from chance or choice, remained in the
equestrian order down to the father of Augustus. Augustus' great-grandfather served in
Sicily in the Second Punic War as tribune of the soldiers under the command of Aemilius
Papus [205 B.C.]. His grandfather, content with the offices of a municipal town and
possessing an abundant income, lived to a peaceful old age. This is the account given by
others; Augustus himself merely writes [in his Memoirs] that he came of an old and wealthy
equestrian family, in which his own father was the first to become a senator. Marcus
Antonius taunts him with his great-grandfather, saying that he was a freedman and a
rope-maker from the country about Thurii, while his grandfather was a money-changer. This
is all that I have been able to learn about the paternal ancestors of Augustus.
III. His father Gaius Octavius was from the beginning of his life a man of wealth and
repute, and I cannot but wonder that some have said that he too was a money-changer, and
was even employed to distribute bribes at the elections and perform other services in the
Campus; for as a matter of fact, being brought up in affluence, he readily attained to
high positions and filled them with distinction. Macedonia fell to his lot at the end of
his praetorship; on his way to the province, executing a special commission from the
senate, he wiped out a band of runaway slaves, refugees from the armies of Spartacus and
Catiline, who held possession of the country about Thurii. In governing his province he
showed equal justice and courage; for besides routing the Bessi and the other Thracians in
a great battle, his treatment of our allies was such, that Marcus Cicero, in letters which
are still in existence [Ad Quint. Frat. 1.1.21], urges and admonishes his brother
Quintus, who at the time was serving as proconsular governor [Quintus Cicero was really propraetor]
of Asia [61/58 B.C.] with no great credit to himself, to imitate his neighbour Octavius in
winning the favour of our allies.
IV. While returning from Macedonia, before he could declare himself a candidate for the
consulship, he died suddenly, survived by three children, an elder Octavia by Ancharia,
and by Atia a younger Octavia and Augustus. Atia was the daughter of Marcus Atius Balbus
and Julia, sister of Gaius Caesar. Balbus, a native of Aricia on his father's side, and of
a family displaying many senatorial portraits [imagines were waxen masks of
ancestors of senatorial rank, kept in the atrium of their descendants], was closely
connected on his mother's side with Pompeius the Great. After holding the office of
praetor, he was one of the commission of twenty appointed by the Julian law to distribute
lands in Campania to the commons. But Antonius again, trying to disparage the maternal
ancestors of Augustus as well, twits him with having a great-grandfather of African birth,
who kept first a perfumery shop and then a bakery at Aricia. Cassius of Parma also taunts
Augustus with being the grandson both of a baker and of a money-changer, saying in one of
his letters: "Your mother's meal came from a vulgar bakeshop of Aricia; this a
money-changer from Nerulum kneaded into shape with hands stained with filthy lucre."
V. Augustus was born just before sunrise on the ninth day before the Kalends of October
in the consulship of Marcus Tullius Cicero and Gaius Antonius [Sept. 23, 63 B.C.], at the
Ox-Heads in the Palatine quarter, where he now has a shrine, built shortly after his
death. For it is recorded in the proceedings of the Senate, that when Gaius Laetorius, a
young man of patrician family, was pleading for a milder punishment for adultery because
of his youth and position, he further urged upon the Senators that he was the possessor
and as it were the warden of the spot which the deified Augustus first touched at his
birth, and begged that he be pardoned for the sake of what might be called his own special
god. Whereupon it was decreed that that part of his house should be consecrated.
VI. A small room like a pantry is shown to this day as the emperor's nursery in his
grandfather's country-house near Velitrae, and the opinion prevails in the neighbourhood
that he was actually born there. No one ventures to enter this room except of necessity
and after purification, since there is a conviction of long-standing that those who
approach it without ceremony are seized with shuddering and terror; and what is more, this
has recently been shown to be true. For when a new owner, either by chance or to test the
matter, went to bed in that room, it came to pass that, after a very few hours of the
night, he was thrown out by a sudden mysterious force, and was found bedclothes and all
half-dead before the door.
VII. In his infancy he was given the surname Thurinus in memory of the home of
his ancestors, or else because it was near Thurii that his father Octavius, shortly after
the birth of his son, had gained his victory over the runaway slaves. That he was surnamed
Thurinus I may assert on very trustworthy evidence, since I once obtained a bronze
statuette, representing him as a boy and inscribed with that name in letters of iron
almost illegible from age. This I presented to the emperor [i.e., Hadrian], who
cherishes it among the Lares of his bed-chamber. Furthermore, he is often called Thurinus
in Marcus Antonius' letters by way of insult; to which Augustus merely replied that he was
surprised that his former name was thrown in his face as a reproach. Later he took the
name of Gaius Caesar [44 B.C.], and then the surname Augustus [27 B.C.], the former by the
will of his great-uncle [i.e., Julius Caesar], the latter on the motion of Munatius
Plancus. For when some expressed the opinion that he ought to be called Romulus as a
second founder of the city, Plancus carried the proposal that he should rather be named
Augustus, on the ground that this was not merely a new title but a more honourable one,
inasmuch as sacred places too, and those in which anything is consecrated by augural rites
are called "august" [augusta], from the "increase" [auctus]
in dignity, or from the movements or feeding of the birds [avium gestus gustusve],
as Ennius [Annales, 502, Vahlen] also shows when he writes: "After by augury
august illustrious Rome had been founded."
VIII. At the age of four he lost his father [59 B.C.]. In his twelfth year he delivered
a funeral oration to the assembled people in honour of his grandmother Julia. Four years
later, after assuming the gown of manhood, he received military prizes at Caesar's African
triumph, although he had taken no part in the war on account of his youth. When his uncle
presently went to Spain to engage the sons of Pompeius [46 B.C.], although Augustus had
hardly yet recovered his strength after a severe illness, he followed over roads beset by
the enemy with only a very few companions, and that too after suffering shipwreck, and
thereby greatly endeared himself to Caesar, who soon formed a high opinion of his
character over and above the energy with which he had made the journey. When Caesar, after
recovering the Spanish provinces, planned an expedition against the Dacians and then
against the Parthians, Augustus, who had been sent on in advance to Apollonia, devoted his
leisure to study. As soon as he learned that his uncle had been slain and that he was his
heir [44 B.C.], he was in doubt for some time whether to appeal to the nearest legions,
but gave up the idea as hasty and premature. He did, however, return to the city and enter
upon his inheritance, in spite of the doubts of his mother and the strong opposition of
his stepfather, the ex-consul Marcius Philippus. Then he levied armies and henceforth
ruled the State, at first with Marcus Antonius and Marcus Lepidus, then with Antonius
alone for nearly twelve years, and finally by himself for forty-four.
IX. Having given as it were a summary of his life, I shall now take up its various
phases one by one, not in chronological order, but by classes, to make the account clearer
and more intelligible. The civil wars which he waged were five, called by the names of
Mutina, Philippi, Perusia, Sicily, and Actium; the first and last of these were against
Marcus Antonius, the second against Brutus and Cassius, the third against Lucius Antonius,
brother of the triumvir, and the fourth against Sextus Pompeius, son of Gnaeus.
X. The initial reason for all these wars was this: since he considered nothing more
incumbent on him than to avenge his uncle's death and maintain the validity of his
enactments, immediately on returning from Apollonia he resolved to surprise Brutus and
Cassius by taking up arms against them; and when they foresaw the danger and fled, to
resort to law and prosecute them for murder in their absence. Furthermore, since those who
had been appointed to celebrate Caesar's victory by games did not dare to do so, he gave
them himself. To be able to carry out his other plans with more authority, he announced
his candidature for the position of one of the tribunes of the people, who happened to
die; though he was a patrician, and not yet a senator [Since the time of Sulla only
senators were eligible for the position of tribune]. But when his designs were opposed by
Marcus Antonius, who was then consul, and on whose help he had especially counted, and
Antonius would not allow him even common and ordinary justice without the promise of a
heavy bribe, he went over to the aristocrats, who he knew detested Antonius, especially
because he was besieging Decimus Brutus at Mutina, and trying to drive him by force of
arms from the province given him by Caesar and ratified by the Senate. Accordingly, at the
advice of certain men, he hired assassins to kill Antonius, and when the plot was
discovered, fearing retaliation he mustered veterans, by the use of all the money he could
command, both for his own protection and that of the State. Put in command of the army
which he had raised, with the rank of propraetor, and bidden to join with Hirtius and
Pansa, who had become consuls, in lending aid to Decimus Brutus, he finished the war which
had been entrusted to him within three months in two battles. In the former of these, so
Antonius writes, he took to flight and was not seen again until the next day, when he
returned without his cloak and his horse; but in that which followed all agree that he
played the part not only of a leader, but of a soldier as well, and that, in the thick of
the fight, when the eagle-bearer of his legion was sorely wounded, he shouldered the eagle
and carried it for some time.
XI. As Hirtius lost his life in battle during this war, and Pansa shortly afterwards
from a wound, the rumor spread that he had caused the death of both, in order that after
Antonius had been put to flight and the state bereft of its consuls, he might gain sole
control of the victorious armies. The circumstances of Pansa's death in particular were so
suspicious, that the physician Glyco was imprisoned on the charge of having applied poison
to his wound. Aquilius Niger adds to this that Augustus himself slew the other consul
Hirtius amid the confusion of the battle.
XII. But when he learned that Antonius after his flight had found a protector in Marcus
Lepidus, and that the rest of the leaders and armies were coming to terms with them, he
abandoned the cause of the nobles without hesitation, alleging as a pretext for his change
of allegiance the words and acts of certain of their number, asserting that some had
called him a boy, while others had openly said that he ought to be honoured and got rid
of, to escape the necessity of making suitable recompense to him or to his veterans. To
show more plainly that he regretted his connection with the former party, he imposed a
heavy fine on the people of Nursia and banished them from their city when they were unable
to pay it, because they had at public expense erected a monument to their citizens who
were slain in the battles at Mutina and inscribed upon it: "they fell for
liberty."
XIII. Then, forming a league with Antonius and Lepidus; he finished the war of Philippi
[42 B.C.] also in two battles, although weakened by illness, being driven from his camp in
the first battle and barely making his escape by fleeing to Antonius' division. He did not
use his victory with moderation, but after sending Brutus' head to Rome, to be cast at the
feet of Caesar's statue, he vented his spleen upon the most distinguished of his captives,
not even sparing them insulting language. For instance, to one man who begged humbly for
burial, he is said to have replied: "The birds will soon settle that question."
When two others, father and son, begged for their lives, he is said to have bidden them
cast lots or play mora [a game still common in Italy, in which the contestants thrust out
their fingers, the one naming correctly the number thrust out by his opponent being the
winner], to decide which should be spared, and then to have looked on while both died,
since the father was executed because he offered to die for his son, and the latter
thereupon took his own life. Because of this the rest, including Marcus Favonius, the
well-known imitator of Cato, saluted Antonius respectfully as Imperator when they were led
out in chains, but lashed Augustus to his face with the foulest abuse. When the duties of
administration were divided after the victory, Antonius undertaking to restore order in
the East, and Augustus to lead the veterans back to Italy and assign them lands in the
municipalities, he could neither satisfy the veterans nor the landowners, since the latter
complained that they were driven from their homes, and the former that they were not being
treated as their services had led them to hope.
XIV. When Lucius Antonius at this juncture [41 B.C.] attempted a revolution, relying on
his position as consul and his brother's power, he forced him to take refuge in Perusia,
and starved him into surrender, not, however, without great personal danger both before
and during the war. For at an exhibition of games, when he had given orders that a common
soldier who was sitting in the fourteen rows be put out by an attendant, the report was
spread by his detractors that he had had the man killed later and tortured as well;
whereupon he all but lost his life in a furious mob of soldiers, owing his escape to the
sudden appearance of the missing man safe and sound. Again, when he was sacrificing near
the walls of Perusia, he was well nigh cut off by a band of gladiators, who had made a
sally from the town.
XV. After the capture of Perusia [40 B.C.] he took vengeance on many, meeting all
attempts to beg for pardon or to make excuses with the one reply, "You must
die." Some write that three hundred men of both orders were selected from the
prisoners of war and sacrificed on the Ides of March like so many victims at the altar
raised to the Deified Julius. Some have written that he took up arms of a set purpose, to
unmask his secret opponents and those whom fear rather than good-will kept faithful to
him, by giving them the chance to follow the lead of Lucius Antonius; and then by
vanquishing them and confiscating their estates to pay the rewards promised to his
veterans.
XVI. The Sicilian war [43/35 B.C.] was among the first that he began, but it was long
drawn out by many interruptions, now for the purpose of rebuilding his fleets, which he
twice lost by shipwreck due to storms, and that, too, in the summer; and again by making
peace at the demand of the people, when supplies were cut off and there was a severe
famine. Finally, after new ships had been built and twenty thousand slaves set free and
trained as oarsmen, he made the Julian harbour at Baiae by letting the sea into the
Lucrine lake and Lake Avernus. After drilling his forces there all winter, he defeated
Pompeius between Mylae and Naulochus, though just before the battle he was suddenly held
fast by so deep a sleep that his friends had to awaken him to give the signal. And it was
this, I think, that gave Antonius opportunity for the taunt: "He could not even look
with steady eyes at the fleet when it was ready for battle, but lay in a stupor on his
back, looking up at the sky, and did not rise or appear before the soldiers until the
enemy's ships had been put to flight by Marcus Agrippa." Some censured an act and
saying of his, declaring that when his fleets were lost in the storm, he cried out,
"I will have the victory despite Neptune," and that on the day when games in the
Circus next occurred, he removed the statue of that god from the sacred procession. And it
is safe to say that in none of his wars did he encounter more dangers or greater ones. For
when he had transported an army to Sicily and was on his way back to the rest of his
forces on the mainland, he was surprised by Pompeius's admirals Demochares and
Apollophanes and barely escaped with but a single ship. Again, as he was going on foot to
Regium by way of Locri, he saw some of Pompeius's biremes coasting along the shore, and
taking them for his own ships and going down to the beach, narrowly escaped capture. At
that same time, too, as he was making his escape by narrow bypaths, a slave of his
companion Aemilius Paulus, nursing a grudge because Augustus had proscribed his master's
father some time before, and thinking that he had an opportunity for revenge, attempted to
slay him.
After Pompeius's flight, Augustus' other colleague, Marcus Lepidus, whom he had
summoned from Africa to help him, was puffed up by confidence in his twenty legions and
claimed the first place with terrible threats; but Augustus stripped him of his army; and
though he granted him his life when he sued for it, he banished him for all time to
Circei.
XVII. At last he broke off his alliance with Marcus Antonius, which was always doubtful
and uncertain, and with difficulty kept alive by various reconciliations; and the better
to show that his rival had fallen away from conduct becoming a citizen, he had the will
which Antonius had left in Rome, naming his children by Cleopatra among his heirs, opened
and read before the people. But when Antonius was declared a public enemy, he sent back to
him all his kinsfolk and friends, among others Gaius Sosius and Titus Domitius, who were
still consuls at the time. He also excused the community of Bononia from joining in the
rally of all Italy to his standards, since they had been from ancient days dependents of
the Antonii. Not long afterwards [31 B.C.] he won the sea-fight at Actium, where the
contest continued to so late an hour that the victor passed the night on board. Having
gone into winter quarters at Samos after Actium, he was disturbed by the news of a mutiny
of the troops that he had selected from every division of his army and sent on to
Brundisium after the victory, who demanded their rewards and discharge; and on his way
back to Italy he twice encountered storms at sea, first between the headlands of the
Peloponnesus and Aetolia, and again off the Ceraunian mountains. In both places a part of
his galleys were sunk, while the rigging of the ship in which he was sailing was carried
away and its rudder broken. He delayed at Brundisium only twenty-seven days---just long
enough to satisfy all the demands of the soldiers---and then went to Egypt by a roundabout
way through Asia and Syria, laid siege to Alexandria, where Antonius had taken refuge with
Cleopatra, and soon took the city. Although Antonius tried to make terms at the eleventh
hour, Augustus forced him to commit suicide, and viewed his corpse. He greatly desired to
save Cleopatra alive for his triumph, and even had Psylli brought to her, to suck the
poison from her wound, since it was thought that she died from the bite of an asp. He
allowed them both the honour of burial, and in the same tomb, giving orders that the
mausoleum which they had begun should be finished. The young Antonius, the elder of
Fulvia's two sons, he dragged from the image of the Deified Julius, to which he had fled
after many vain entreaties, and slew him. Caesarion, too, whom Cleopatra fathered on
Caesar, he overtook in his flight, brought back, and put to death. But he spared the rest
of the offspring of Antonius and Cleopatra, and afterwards maintained and reared them
according to their several positions, as carefully as if they were his own kin.
XVIII. About this time he had the sarcophagus and body of Alexander the Great brought
forth from its shrine, and after gazing on it, showed his respect by placing upon it a
golden crown and strewing it with flowers; and being then asked whether he wished to see
the tomb of the Ptolemies as well, he replied, "My wish was to see a king, not
corpses." He reduced Egypt to the form of a province, and then to make it more
fruitful and better adapted to supply the city with grain, he set his soldiers at work
cleaning out all the canals into which the Nile overflows, which in the course of many
years had become choked with mud. To extend the fame of his victory at Actium and
perpetuate its memory, he founded a city called Nicopolis near Actium, and provided for
the celebration of games there every five years; enlarged the ancient temple of Apollo;
and after adorning the site of the camp which he had occupied with naval trophies,
consecrated it to Neptune and Mars.
XIX. After this he nipped in the bud at various times several outbreaks, attempts at
revolution, and conspiracies, which were betrayed before they became formidable. The
ringleaders were, first the young Lepidus, then Varro Murena and Fannius Caepio, later
Marcus Egnatius, next Plautius Rufus and Lucius Paulus, husband of the emperor's
granddaughter, and besides these Lucius Audasius, who had been charged with forgery, and
was moreover old and feeble; alsoAsinius Epicadus, a half-breed of Parthian descent, and
finally Telephus, slave and page [the nomenclator was a slave whose duty it was to
remind his master, or mistress, of the names of persons] of a woman; for even men of the
lowest condition conspired against him and imperilled his safety. Audasius and Epicadus
had planned to take his daughter Julia and his grandson Agrippa by force to the armies
from the islands where they were confined, Telephus to set upon both Augustus and the
Senate, under the delusion that he himself was destined for empire. Even a soldier's
servant from the army in Illyricum, who had escaped the vigilance of the door-keepers, was
caught at night near the emperor's bed-room, armed with a hunting knife; but whether the
fellow was crazy or feigned madness is a question, since nothing could be wrung from him
by torture.
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