44. He issued special regulations to prevent the disorderly and haphazard system by which spectators secured seats for these shows; having been outraged by the insult to a senator who, on entering the crowded theatre at Puteoli, was not offered a seat by a single member of the audience. The consequent Senatorial decree provided that at every public performance, wherever held, the front row of stalls must be reserved for senators. At Rome, Augustus would not admit the envoys of independent or allied kingdoms to seats in the orchestra, on learning that some were mere freedmen. Other rules of his included the separation of soldiers from civilians; the assignment of special seats to married commoners, to boys not yet come of age, and, close by, to their tutors; and a ban on the wearing of dark cloaks, except in the back rows. Also, whereas men and women had hitherto always sat together, Augustus confined women to the back rows even at gladiatorial shows: the only ones exempt from this rule being the Vestal Virgins, for whom separate accommodation was provided, facing the praetor's tribunal. No women at all were allowed to witness the athletic contests; indeed, when the audience clamoured at the Games for a special boxing match to celebrate his appointment as Chief Priest, Augustus postponed this until early the next morning, and issued a proclamation to the effect that it was the Chief Priest's desire that women should not attend the Theatre before ten o'clock.

45. He had a habit of watching the Games from the upper rooms of houses overlooking the Circus, which belonged to his friends or freedmen; but occasionally he used the imperial box, and even took his wife and children there with him. Sometimes he did not appear until the show had been running for several hours, or even for a day or more; but always excused his absences and appointed a substitute president. Once in his seat, however, he watched the proceedings intently; either to avoid the bad reputation earned by Julius Caesar for reading letters or petitions, and answering them, during such performances, or just to enjoy the fun, as he frankly admitted doing. This enjoyment led him to offer special prizes at Games provided by others, or give the victors valuable presents from the Privy Purse; and he never failed to reward, according to their merits, the competitors in any Greek theatrical contests that he attended. His chief delight was to watch boxing, particularly when the fighters were Italians - and not merely professional bouts, in which he often used to pit Italians against Greeks, but slogging matches between untrained roughs in narrow city alleys.

To be brief: Augustus honoured all sorts of professional entertainers by his friendly interest in them; maintained, and even increased, the privileges enjoyed by athletes; banned gladiatorial contests if the defeated fighter were forbidden to plead for mercy; and amended an ancient law empowering magistrates to punish stage-players wherever and whenever they pleased - so that they were now competent to deal only with misdemeanours committed at games or theatrical performances. Nevertheless, he insisted on a meticulous observance of regulations during wrestling matches and gladiatorial contests; and was exceedingly strict in checking the licentious behaviour of stageplayers. When he heard that Stephanio, a Roman actor, went about attended by a page-boy who was really a married woman with her hair cropped, he had him flogged through all the three theatres - those of Pompey, Balbus, and Marcellus - and then exiled. Acting on a praetor's complaint, he had a comedian named Hylas publicly scourged in the hall of his own residence; and expelled Pylades not only from Rome, but from Italy too, because when a spectator started to hiss, he called the attention of the whole audience to him with an obscene movement of his middle finger.

46. After thus improving and reorganizing Rome, Augustus increased the population of Italy by personally founding twenty-eight veteran colonies. He also supplied country towns with municipal buildings and revenues; and even gave them, to some degree at least, privileges and honors equalling those enjoyed by the City of Rome. This was done by granting the members of each local senate the right to vote for candidates in the City Elections; their ballots were to be placed in sealed containers and counted at Rome on polling day. To maintain the number of knights and encourage an increase in the population, he allowed any township to nominate men capable of taking up such senior Army posts as were reserved for the Equestrian Order; and, to encourage the birth-rate of the Roman commons, offered a bounty of ten gold pieces for every legitimate son or daughter whom a citizen could produce, on his tours of the city wards.

47. Augustus kepy for himself all the more vigorous privinces- those that could not be safely administered by an annual governor; the remainder went to proconsuls chosen by lot. Yet, as occasion arose, he would change the status of provinces from imperial to senatorial, or contrariwise, and paid frequent visits to either sort. Finding that certain city-states which had treaties of alliance with Rome were ruining themselves through political irresponsibility, he took away their independence; but also granted subsidies to others crippled by public debts, rebuilt some cities which had been devastated by earthquakes, and even awarded Latin rights or full citizenship to states that could show a record of faithful service in the Roman cause. So far as I know, Augustus inspected every province of the Empire, execpt Sardinia and North Africa, and would have toured these, too, after his defeat of Sextus Pompey in Sicily, had not a sequence of gales prevented him from sailing; later, he had no particular reason, nor any opportunity, for visiting either province.

48. He nearly always restored the kingdoms which he had conquered to their defeated dynasties, or combined them with others, and followed a policy of linking together his royal allies by mutual ties of friendship or intermarriage, which he was never slow to propose. Nor did he treat them otherwise than as integral parts of the Empire, showing them all consideration and finding guardians for those who were not yet old enough to rule, unil they came of age - and for those who suffered from mental illness, until they recovered. He also brought up many of their children with his own, and gave them the same education.

49. His military dispositions were as follows. The legions and their auxiliaries were distributed among the various provinces, one fleet being stationed at Misenum, and another at Ravenna, to command respectively the Western and Eastern Mediterranean. The rest of his armed forces served parly as city police, parly as his own bodyguards; for after Antony's defeat he had disbanded a company of men from Calagurris, and a company of Germans after the Varus disaster - both of which had served in his personal bodyguard. However, he never kept more than three cohorts on duty at Rome, and even these had no permanent camp; the remainder he stationed in near-by towns, changing them regularly from summer to winter quarters. Augustus also standardized the pay and allowances of the entire Army - at the same time fixing the period of service and the bounty due on its completion - according to military rank; this would discourage them from revolting, when back in civil life, on the excuse that they were either too old or had insufficient capital to earn an honest living. In order to have sufficient funds always in hand for the upkeep of his military establishment and for pensioning of veterans, he formed an Army Treasury maintained by additional taxation. At the beginning of his reign he kept in close and immediate touch with provincial affairs by relays of runners strung out at short intervals along the highways; later, he organized a chariot service, based on posting stations which has proved the more satisfactory arrangement, because post boys can be cross-examined on the situation as well as delivering written messages.

50. The first seal Augustus used for safe-conducts, dispatches, and private letters was a sphinx; next came a head of Alexander the Great; lastly, his own head, cut by Dioscurides, the seal which his successors continued to employ. He not only dated every letter, but entered the exact hour or the day or night when it was composed.

51. There are numerous positive proofs of Augustus' clemency and considerate behaviour. Without supplying a full list of the political enemies whom he pardoned and allowed to hold high government office, it will be enough to record that a fine was the sole punishment he awarded Junius Novatus, a plebeian, for circulating a most damaging libel on him under the name of Agrippa Postumus; and that Cassius Patavinus, another plebeian, who openly boasted at a large banquet that he would enjoy assassinating him and had the courage, too, escaped with a mild form of exile. Then again hearing, at an inquiry into the case of Aemilius Aelianus from Corduba, that the most serious of the many charges brought against him was one of 'vilifying Caesar', Augustus pretended to lose his temper and told the counsel for the prosecution: ' I wish you could prove that charge! I'll show Aelianus that I have a nasty tongue, too, and vilify him even worse!' He then dropped the whole inquiry and never resumed it. When Tiberius mentioned the matter in a letter, with more violent expostulations against Aelianus, Augustus replied: 'My dear Tiberius, you must not give way to youthful emotion, or take it to heart if anyone speaks ill of me; let us be satisfied if we can make people stop short at unkind words.'

52. Although the voting of temples to popular proconsuls was a commonplace, he would not accept any such honor, even in the provinces, unless his name were coupled with that of Rome. He even more vigorously opposed the dedication of a temple to himself at home, and went so far as to melt down the silver statues previously erected, and to spend the silver coined from them on golden tripods for Palatine Apollo. When the people would have forced a dictatorship on him he fell on his knee and, throwing back his gown to expose his naked breast, implored their silence.

53. He always felt horrified and insulted when called 'My Lord'. Once, while he was watching a comedy, one of the players spoke the line:

' O just and generous Lord ! '

whereupon the entire audience rose to their feet and applauded, as if the phrase referred to Augustus. A look and a gesture soon quelled this unsuitable flattery, and the next day he issued an edict of stem reprimand. After this he would not let even his adopted children, or grandchildren, use the obsequious word (though it might be only in joke), either when talking to him or about him. Augustus did his best to avoid leaving or entering any city in broad daylight, because that would have obliged the authorities to give him a formal welcome or send-off. During his consulships, he usually went on foot through the streets of Rome, and on other occasions in a closed litter. His morning audiences were open to commoners as well as knights and senators, and he behaved very sociably to all who came with requests - once a petitioner showed such nervousness that Augustus laughed and said: 'Anyone would think you were offering a penny to an elephant!' On days when the Senate was in session and the members had therefore refrained from paying their customary call at his home, he would enter the House and greet each of them in turn by name, unprompted; and after the conclusion of business said goodbye in the same fashion, not requiring them to rise. He exchanged social calls with many noblemen and always attended their birthday celebrations, until he grew elderly and was jostled by a crowd at a betrothal party. When a senator named Cerrinius Gallus, whom Augustus knew only slightly, went suddenly blind and decided to starve himself to death, he paid him a visit and spoke so consolingly that Gallus changed his mind.

54. Augustus' speeches in the House would often be interrupted by such remarks as 'I don't understand you!' or 'I'd dispute your point if I got the chance.' And it happened more than once that, exasperated by recriminations which lowered the tone of the debates, he left the House in angry haste, and was followed by shouts of: ' You ought to let senators say exactly what they think about matters of public importance!' When every senator was required to nominate one other for enrollment in the reformed Order, Antistius Labeo chose Marcus Lepidus, an old enemy of Augustus', then living in exile Augustus asked: 'Surely there are others more deserving of this honour?' Labeo answered: 'A man is entitled to his own opinion.' Yet Augustus never punished anyone for showing independence of mind on such occasions, or even for behaving insolently.

55. He remained unmoved by the lampoons on him, which were distributed about the House, but took trouble to prove their pointlessness; and instead of trying to discover their authors, merely moved that henceforth it should be a criminal offense to publish any defamatory libel, either in prose or verse, signed with another's name.

56. Though replying in a public proclamation to various ugly and damaging jokes current at his expense, he vetoed a law that would have suppressed free speech in wills. Whenever assisting at the City Elections he used to take the candidates with him on a tour of the wards and canvass for them in the traditional manner. He would also cast a vote himself, in his own tribe, to show that he remained a man of the people. If called upon to give evidence in court he answered questions patiently and did not even mind being contradicted. Augustus' new Forum is so narrow because he could not bring himself to evict the owners of the houses which would have been demolished had his original plan been carried out. He never nominated his adopted sons for offices of state without adding: 'If they deserve this honour.' Once, while they were still boys, and the entire theatre audience stood up to cheer them, he expressed his annoyance in no uncertain terms. Although anxious that his friends should take a prominent share in the administration, he expected them to be bound by the same laws as their fellow-citizens and equally liable to public prosecution. When Cassius Severus had brought a charge of poisoning against Augustus' close friend Nonius Asprenas, Augustus asked the Senate what they wished him to do. `I find myself in a quandary,' he said, 'because to speak in Nonius' defense might be construed as an attempt to shield a criminal, whereas my silence would suggest that I was treacherously prejudicing a friend's chance of acquittal.' Since the whole House consented to his presence in Court, he sat quietly for several hours on the benches of the advocates and witnesses, but abstained even from testifying to Nonius' character. He did, however, appear for some of his own dependents, among them a former staff-officer named Scutarius, who had been accused of slander. Yet he intervened successfully in only one case, and then by a personal appeal to the plaintiff in the presence of the judges; this was Castricius, to whom he was indebted for the disclosure of Murena's conspiracy.

57. The degree of affection that Augustus won by such behaviour can easily be gauged. The grateful senatorial decrees may, of course, be discounted as to a certain extent inspired by a sense of obligation. But the Equestrian Order voluntarily and unanimously decided to celebrate his birthday, spreading the festivities over two days; and once a year men of all classes would visit the Curtian Lake, into which they threw coins for his well-being in fulfillment of a vow. They would also climb to the Capitol on New Year's Day with money presents, even if he happened to be out of town. With the sum that thus accrued Augustus bought valuable images of the gods, which he set up in each of the city wards: among them the Apollo of Sandal Street, and Jupiter of the Tragedians.

When his house on the Palatine Hill burned down, a fund for its rebuilding was started by the veterans, the guilds, and the tribes; to which people of every sort made further individual contributions according to their means. Augustus, to show his gratitude for the gift, took a token coin from each heap, but no more than a single silver piece. His homecoming after tours of the Empire were always acclaimed with respectful good wishes and songs of joy as well; and it became a custom to cancel all punishments on the day he set foot in Rome. 58. In a universal movement to confer on Augustus the title 'Father of his Country', the first approach was made by the commons, who sent a deputation to him at Antium; when he declined this honour a huge crowd met him outside the Theatre with laurel wreaths, and repeated the request. Finally, the Senate followed suit but, instead of issuing a decree or acclaiming him with shouts, chose Valerius Messala to speak for them all when Augustus entered the House. Messala's words were:

'Caesar Augustus, I am instructed to wish you and your family good fortune and divine blessings; which amounts to wishing that our entire State will be fortunate and our country prosperous. The Senate agree with the People of Rome in saluting you as Father of your Country.'

With tears in his eyes, Augustus answered - again I quote his exact words: 'Fathers of the Senate, I have at last achieved my highest ambition. What more can I ask of the immortal gods than that they may permit me to enjoy your approval until my dying day?'

59. Augustus' private physicians Antonius Musa, who had pulled hill through a serious illness, was honoured with a statue, bought by public subscription and set up beside Aesculapius'. The will of more than one householder directed that his heirs should take sacrificial victims to the Capitol and carry a placard before them as they went, inscribed with an expression of their gratitude for Augustus' having been allowed to outlive the testator. Some Italian cities voted that their official year should commence on the anniversary of his fist visit to them; and a number of provinces not only erected temples and altars to him, but arranged for most of their cities to hold games in his honour at five-yearly intervals.

60. Each of the allied kings who enjoyed Augustus' friendship, founded a city called 'Caesarea' in his own dominions; and all clubbed together to provide funds for completing the Temple of Olympian Zeus at Athens, which had been begun centuries before, and dedicating it to his genius. These kings would often leave home, dressed in the togas of their honorary Roman citizenship, without any emblems of royalty whatsoever, and visit Augustus at Rome, or even while he was visiting the provinces; they would attend his morning audiences with the simple devotion of family dependants.

6I. This completes my account of Augustus' civil and military career, and of how he governed the Empire, in all parts of the world, in peace and war. Now follows a description of his private life, his character, and his domestic fortunes, from his youth until the last day of his life.

At the age of twenty, while consul for the first time, Augustus lost his mother; and at the age of fifty-four, his sister Octavia. He had been a devoted son and brother while they lived, and conferred the highest posthumous honours on them at their deaths.

62. As a young main he was betrothed to the daughter of Publius Servilius Isauricus, but on his reconciliation with Mark Antony, after their first disagreement, the troops insisted that they should become closely allied by marriage so, although Antony' s step-daughter Claudia - borne by his wife Fulvia to Publius Clodius - was only just of marriageable age, Augustus married her; however, he quarreled with Fulvia and divorced Claudia before the union had been comsummated. Soon afterwards he married Scribonia, both of whose previous husbands had been ex-consuls, and by one of whom she had a child. Augustus divorced her, too, ' because,' as he wrote, ' I could not bear the way she nagged at me' - and immediately took Livia Drusilla away from her husband, Tiberius Nero though she was pregnant at the time. Livia remained the one woman whom he truly loved until his death.

63. Scribonia bore him a daughter, Julia; but to his great disappointment the marriage with Livia proved childless, apart from a premature birth. But Julia's first husband was Marcellus, his sister Octavia's son, then hardly more than a child; and, when he died, Augustus persuaded Octavia to let her become Marcus Agrippa's wife - though Agrippa was now married to one of Marcellus' two sisters, and had fathered children on her. At Agrippa's death, Augustus cast about for a new son-in-law, even if he were only a knight, eventually choosing Tiberius, his step-son; this meant, however, that Tiberius must divorce his wife, who had already given him an heir. Julia was betrothed first to Antony's son Antonius, and then to Cotiso, King of the Getae, whose daughter Augustus himself proposed to marry in exchange; or so Antony writes.

64. Julia bore Agrippa three sons - Gaius, Lucius, and Agrippa Postumus; and two daughters - Julia the Younger, and Agrippina the Elder. Augustus married this Julia to Lucius Paulus whose father, of the same name, was Censor; and Agrippina to Germanicus - the grandson of his sister. He then adopted Gaius and Lucius, and brought them up at the Palace; after buying them from Agrippa by a token sale. He trained his new sons in the business of government while they were still young, sending them as commanders-in-chief to the provinces when only Consuls-elect. The education of his daughter and grand-daughters included even spinning and weaving; they were forbidden to say or do anything, either publicly or in private, that could not decently figure in the imperial day-book. He took severe measures to prevent them forming friendships without his consent, and once wrote to Lucius Vinicius, a young man of good family and conduct: you were very ill-mannered to visit my daughter at Baiae.' Augustus gave Gaius and Lucius reading, swimming, and other simple lessons, for the most part acting as their tutor himself; and was at pains to make them model their handwriting on his own. Whenever they dined in his company he had them sit at his feet on the so-called lowest couch; and, while accompanying him on his travels, they rode either ahead of his carriage, or one on each side of it.

65. His satisfaction with the success of this family and its training was, however, suddenly dashed by Fortune. He came to the conclusion that the Elder and the Younger Julia had both been indulging in every sort of vice; and banished them. When Gaius then died in Lycia, old Lucius eighteen months later at Massilia, Augustus publicly adopted his remaining grandchild, Agrippa Postumus and, at the same time, his step-son Tiberius; a special bill to legalize this act was passed in the Forum.(2) Yet he soon disinherited Postumus, whose behaviour had lately been vulgar and brutal, and packed him off to Surrentum.

When members of his family died Augustus bore his loss with far more resignation than when they disgraced themselves. The deaths of Gaius and Lucius did not break his spirit; but after discovering his daughter Julia's adulteries, he refused to see visitors for some time. He wrote a letter about her case to the Senate, staying at home while a quaestor read it to them. He even considered her execution; at any rate, hearing that one Phoebe, a freedwoman in Julia's confidence, had hanged herself, he cried: 'I should have preferred to be Phoebe's father!' Julia was forbidden to drink wine or enjoy any other luxury during her exile; and denied all male company, whether free or servile, except by Augustus's special permission and after he had been given full particulars of the applicant's age, height, complexion, and of any distinguishing marks on his body- such as moles or scars. He kept Julia for five years on a prison island before morving her to the mainland, where she received somewhat milder treatment. Yet nothing would persuade him to forgive his daughter; and when the Roman people interceded several times on her behalf, earnestly pleading for her recall, he stormed at a popular assembly: 'If you ever bring up this matter again, may the gods curse you with daughters and wives like mine!' While in exile Julia the Younger gave birth to a child, which Augustus refused to allow to be acknowledged or reared. Because Agrippa Postumus' conduct, so far from improving, grew daily more irresponsible, he was transferred to an island, and held there under military surveillance. Augustus then asked the Senate to pass a decree making Postumus' banishment permanent; but whenever his name, or that of either Julia, came up in conversation he would sigh deeply, and sometimes quote a line from the Iliad:

'Ah, never to have married, and childless to have died! '

referring to them as 'my three boils' or 'my three running sores'.

66. Though slow in making friends, once Augustus took to a man, he showed great constancy and not only rewarded him as his qualities deserved, but even condoned his minor shortcomings. Indeed, it would be hard to recall an instance when one of Augustus' friends fell from favour; apart from Salvidienus Rufus and Cornelius Gallus, two nobodies whom he promoted, respectively, to a consulship and the governorship of Egypt. Rufus, for taking part in a plot, was handed over to a Senatorial Court and sentenced to death; Gallus, for showing ingratitude and an envious nature, was at first merely denied access to Augustus' house, or the privilege of living in any imperial province; but charges were later brought against him, and he, too, died by order of the Senate. Augustus commended the loyal House for feeling as strongly as they did on his behalf, but complained with tears of the unfortunate position in which he was placed: the only man in Rome who could not punish his friends merely by an expression of disgust for them - the matter must always be taken further. However, Augustus' other friends all continued rich and powerful so long as they lived, despite occasional coolnesses; each ranking among the leaders of his Order. It will be enough to mention in this context his annoyance at Marcus Agrippa's show of impatience and at Maecenas' inability to hold his tongue. Agrippa had felt that Augustus was not behaving as warmly towards him as usual, and that Marcellus was being preferred to him; he resigned all his offices and went off to Mytilene; Maecenas was guilty of confiding a state secret to his wife Terentia - namely that Murena's conspiracy had been disclosed.

Augustus expected the affection that he showed his friends to be warmly reciprocated even in the hour of death. For, although nobody could call him a legacy-hunter - indeed, he could never bear to benefit under the will of a man personally unknown to him - yet he was almost morbid in his careful weighing of a friend's death bed tributes. His disappointment if they economized in their bequests to him or failed to make at least some highly complimentary mention of his name, was only too apparent; nor could he repress his satisfaction if they remembered him with loving gratitude. But whenever any testator, of whatever Order, left him either legacies or shares in promised inheritances, Augustus at once resigned his rights in favour of the man's grown-up sons or daughters, if he had ally; and, in the case of minors, kept the money until the boys came of age or the girls married, whereupon he handed it over, increased by the accumulated interest.

67. Augustus behaved strictly but graciously and kindly towards his dependents and slaves, and honoured some of his freedmen, such as Licinus, Celadus, and others, with his close intimacy. A slave named Cosmus, who had complained of him in the vilest terms, was punished merely by being put in irons. Once, when Augustus and his steward Diomedes were out walking together and a wild boar suddenly charged at them, Diomedes took fright and dodged behind his master. Augustus later made a joke of the incident, though he had been in considerable danger, preferring to call Diomedes a coward than anything worse - after all, his action had not been premeditated. Yet, when one Polus, a favourite freedman, was convicted of adultery with Roman matrons, Augustus ordered hint to commit suicide; and sentenced Thallus, an imperial secretary, to have his legs broken for divulging the contents of a letter - his fee had been twenty-five gold pieces. And because Gaius Caesar's tutor and attendants used their master's sickness and subsequent death as an excuse for arrogant, greedy behaviour in his province, Augustus had them flung into a river with weights tied around their necks.

68. As a young man Augustus was accused of various improprieties. For instance, Sextus Pompey jeered at his effeminacy; Mark Antony alleged that Julius Caesar made him submit to unnatural relations as the price of adoption; Antony's brother Lucius added that, after sacrificing his virtue to Caesar, Augustus had sold his favours to Aulus Hirtius in Spain, for 3,000 gold pieces, and that he used to soften the hair on his legs by singeing them with red-hot walnut shells. One day at the Theatre an actor came on the stage representing a eunuch priest of Cybele, the Mother of the Gods; and, as he played his timbrel, another actor exclaimed:

`Look, how this invert's finger beats the drum!'

Since the Latin phrase could also mean: `Look how this invert's finger sways the world!' the audience took the line for a hint at Augustus and broke into enthusiastic applause.

69. Not even his friends could deny that he often committed adultery, though of course they said, in justification, that he did so for reasons of state, not simple passion - he wanted to discover what his enemies were at by getting intimate with their wives or daughters. Mark Antony accused him not only of indecent haste in marrying Livia, but of hauling an ex-consuls wife from her husband's diningroom into the bedroom - before his eyes, too! He brought the woman back, says Antony, blusing to the ears and with her hair in disorder. Antony also writes that Scribonia was divorced for having said a little too much when a rival got her claws into Augustus; and that his friends used to behave like Toranius, the slave-dealer, in arranging his pleasures for him - they would strip mothers of families, or grown girls, of their clothes and inspect them as though they were up for sale. A racy letter of Antony's survives, written before he and Augustus had quarrelled privately or publicly:

What has come over you? Do you object to my sleeping with Cleopatra? But we are married; and it is not even as though this were anything new - the affair started nine years ago. And what about you? Are you faithful to Livia Drusilla? My congratulations if, when this letter arrives, you have not been in bed with Tertullia, or Terentilla, or Rufilla, or Salvia Titisenia - or all of them. Does it really matter so much where, or with whom, you perform the sexual act?

70. Then there was Augustus' private banquet, known as 'The Feast of the Divine Twelve', which caused a public scandal. The guests came dressed as gods or goddesses, Augustus himself representing Apollo; and our authority for this is not only a spiteful letter of Antony's, which names all the twelve, but the following well-known anonymous lampoon:

Those rogues engaged the services
Of a stage manager;
So Mallia found six goddesses
And six gods facing her !

Apollo's part was lewdly played
By impious Caesar; he
Made merry at a table laid
For gross debauchery.

Such scandalous proceedings shocked
The Olympians. One by one
They quit and Jove, his thunders mocked,
Vacates the golden throne.

What made the scandal even worse was that the banquet took place at a time of food shortage; and on the next day people were shouting: 'The Gods have gobbled all the grain!' or 'Caesar is Apollo, true - but he's Apollo of the Torments' - this being the god's aspect in one city district. Some found Augustus a good deal too fond of expensive furniture, Corinthian bronzes, at d the gaming table. While the proscriptions were in progress someone had scrawled on the base of his statue:

I do not take my father's line;
His trade was silver coin, but mine
Corinthian vases-

the belief being that he enlarged the proscription lists with names of men who owned vases of this sort.

During the Sicilian War another rhyme was current:

He took a beating twice at sea,
And threw two fleets away.
So now to achieve one victory
He tosses dice all day.