7I. Augustus easily disproved the accusation (or slander, if you like) of prostituting his body to men, by the decent normality of his sex-life, then and later; and that of having over-luxurious tastes by his conduct at the capture of Alexandria, where the only loot he took fiom the Palace of the Ptolomies was a single agate cup - he melted down all the golden dinner services. However, the charge of being a womanizer stuck, and as an elderly man he is said to have still harboured a passion for deflowering girls - who were collected for him from every quarter, even by his wife! Augustus did not mind being called a gambler; he diced openly, in his old age too, simply because he enjoyed the game - not only in December, when the licence of the Saturnalia justified it, but on other holidays, as well, and actually on working days. That this is quite true a letter in his own handwriting proves:

My dear Tiberius,

. . . we had the same company for dinner, except that Vinicius and the elder Silius were also invited; and we gambled like old men all through the meal, both yesterday and today. Anyone who threw the Dog - or a six, put a silver piece in the pool for each of the dice; and anyone who threw Venus - scooped the lot.

And another letter runs:

My dear Tiberius,

We spent the Quinquatria very pleasantly, keeping the gaming table warm by playing all day long. Your brother Drusus made fearful complaints about his luck, yet in the long run was not much out of pocket. He went down heavily at first, but we were surprised to see him slowly recouping most of his losses. I lost two hundred gold pieces; however, that was because, as usual, I behaved with excessive sportsmanship. If I had dunned every player who had forfeited his stakes to me, or not handed over my legitimate winnings when dunned myself, I should have been at least five hundred to the good. Well, that is how I like it: my generosity will gain me immortal glory, you may be surel

And to his daughter Julia he wrote:

Enclosed please find two and a half gold pieces in silver coin: which is the sum I give each of my dinner guests in case they feel like dicing or playing ' odd and even ' at table.

72. Augustus's other personal habits are generally agreed to have been unexceptionable. His first house, once the property of Calvus the orator, stood close to tlae Roman Forum at the top of the Ringmakers' Stairs; thence he moved to what had been Hortensius' house on the Palatine Hill. His new palace was remarkable neither for size nor for elegance; the courts being supported by squat columns of peperino stone, and the living-rooms innocent of marble or elaborately tessellated floors. There he slept in the same bedroom all the year round for over forty years; although the winter climate of Rome did not suit his health. Whenever he wanted to be alone and free of interruptions, he could retreat to a study at the top of the house, which he called 'Syracuse' or 'my little workshop'. He would hide himself away either here or else in a suburban villa owned by one of his freedmen; but, if he fell ill, always took refuge in Maecenas' mansion. He spent his holidays at seaside resorts, or on some island off the Campanian coast, or in country towns near Rome, such as Lanuvium, or Praeneste or Tibur - where he often administered justice in the colonnades of Hercules' Temple. Such was his dislike of all large pretentious country houses that he went so far as to demolish one built by his grand-daughterJulia on too lavish a scale. His own were modest enough and less remarkable for their statuary and pictures than for their landscape gardening and the rarities on display: for example, at Capreae he had collected the huge skeletons of extinct sea and land monsters popularly known as 'Giants' Bones'; and the weapons of ancient heroes.

73. How simply Augustus' palace was furnished may be deduced by examining the couches and tables still preserved, many of which would hardly be considered fit for a private citizen. He is said to have always slept on a low bed, with a very ordinary coverlet. On all but special occasions he wore house clothes woven and sewn for him by either Livia, Octavia, Julia, or one of his grand-daughters. His gowns were neither tight nor full, and the purple stripe on them was neither narrow nor broad; but his shoes had rather thick soles to make him look taller. And he always kept a change of better shoes and clothes at hand; he might be unexpectedly called upon to appear in all official capacity.

74. He gave frequent dinner parties, very formal ones, too; paying strict attention to social precedence and personal character. Valerius Messala writes that the sole occasion on which Augustus ever invited a freedman to dine was when he honoured Menas for delivering Sextus Pompey's fleet into his power; and even then Menas was first enrolled on the list of free-born citizens. However, Augustus himself records that he once invited an ex-member of his bodyguard, the freedman whose villa he used as a retreat. At such dinner parties he would sometimes arrive late and leave early, letting his guests start and finish without him. The meal usually consisted of three courses, though in expansive moods Augustus might serve as many as six. There was no great extravagance, and a most cheerful atmosphere, because of his talent for making shy guests, who either kept silent or muttered to their neighbours, join in the general conversation. He also enlivened the meal with performances by musicians, actors, or even men who gave turns at the Circus - but more often by professional story-tellers.

75. Augustus spared no expense when celebrating national holidays and behaved very light-heartedly on occasion. At the Saturnalia, for instance, or whenever else the fancy took him, he whimsically varied the value of his gifts. They might consist of rich clothing and gold or silver plate; or every sort of coin, including specimens from the days of the early monarchy, and foreign pieces; or merely lengths of goathair cloth, or sponges, or pokers, or tongs - all ticketed with misleading and riddling descriptions of the objects concerned.

At some dinner parties he would also auction tickets for prizes of most unequal value, and paintings with their faces turned to the wall, for which every guest present was expected to bid blindly, taking his chance like the rest: he might either pick up most satisfactory bargains, or throw away his money.

76. In this character sketch I need not omit his eating habits. He was frugal and, as a rule, preferred the food of the common people, especially the coarser sort of bread, small fishes, fresh hand-pressed cheese, and green figs of the second crop; and would not wait for dinner, if he felt hungry, but ate anywhere. The following are verbatim quotations from his letters:

I had a snack of bread and dates while out for my drive today . . . and:

On the way back in my litter from the Regia, I munched an ounce of bread and a few hard-skinned grapes.

and again:

My dear Tiberius,

Not even a Jew fasts so scrupulously on his sabbaths as I have done today. Not until dusk had fallen did I touch a thing; and that was at the baths, before I had my oil rub, when I swallowed two mouthfuls of bread.

This failure to observe regular mealtimes often resulted in his dining alone, either before or after his guests, and touching nothing while the meal was in progress.

77. Augustus was also a habitually abstemious drinker. During the siege of Mutina, according to Cornelius Nepos, he never took more than three drinks of wine-and-water at dinner. In later life his limit was a pint; if he ever exceeded this he would deliberately vomit. Raetian was his favourite, but he seldom touched wine between meals; instead, he would moisten his throat with a morsel of bread dunked in cold water; or a slice of cucumber or the heart of a young lettuce; or a sour apple either fresh or dried.

78. After lunch he used to rest for a while without removing clothes or shoes; one hand shading his eyes, his feet uncovered. When dinner was over he would retire to a couch in his study, where he worked late until all the outstanding business of the day had been cleared off; or most of it. Then he went to bed and slept seven hours at the outside, with three or four breaks of wakefulness. If he found it hard to fall asleep again on such occasions, as frequently happened, he sent for readers or story-tellers; and on dropping off would not wake until the sun was up. He could not bear lying sleepless in the dark with no one by his side; and if he had to officiate at some official or religious ceremony that involved early rising - which he also loathed - would spend the previous night at a friend's house as near the appointed place as possible. Even so, he often needed more sleep than he got, and would doze off during his litter journeys through the city if anything delayed his progress and the bearers set the litter down.

79. Augustus was remarkably handsome and of very graceful gait even as an old man; but negligent of his personal appearance. He cared so little about his hair that, to save time, he would have two or three barbers working hurriedly on it together, and meanwhile read or write something, whether they were giving him a haircut or a shave. He always wore so serene an expression, whether talking or in repose, that a Gallic chief once confessed to his compatriots: 'When granted an audience with the Emperor during his passage across the Alps I would have carried out my plan of hurling him over a cliff had not the sight of that tranquil face softened my heart; so I desisted.'

Augustus' eyes were clear and bright, and he liked to believe that they shone with a sort of divine radiance: it gave hint profound pleasure if anyone at whom he glanced keenly dropped his head as though dazzled by looking into the sun. In old age, however, his left eye had only partial vision. His teeth were small, few, and decaycd; his hair, yellowish and rather curly; his eyebrows met above the nose; he had ears of moderate size, a nose projecting a little at the top and then bending slightly inward, and a complexion intermediate between dark and fair. Julius Marathus, Augustus' freedman and recorder, makes his height 5 feet 7 inches; but this is an exaggeration, although, with body and limbs so beautifully proportioned, one did not realize how small a man he was, unless someone tall stood close to him.

80. His body is said to have been marred by blemishes of various sorts - a constellation of seven birthmarks on his chest and stomach, exactly corresponding in form, order, and number with the Great Bear; and a number of hard, dry patches suggesting ringworm, caused by an itching of his skin and a too frequent and vigorous use of the scraper at the Baths. He had a weakness in his left hip, thigh, and leg, which occasionally gave him the suspicion of a limp; but this was unproved by the sand-and-reed treatment. Sometimes the forefinger of his right hand would be so numbed and shrunken by cold that it hardly served to guide a pen, even when strengthened with a horn finger-stall. He also suffered from bladder pains which, however, ceased to trouble him once he had passed gravel in his urine.

8I. Augustus survived several grave and dangerous illnesses at different periods. The worst was after his Cantabrian conquest, when abscesses on the liver reduced him to such despair that he consented to try a remedy which ran counter to all medical practice: because hot fomentations afforded him no relief, his physician Antonius Musa successfully prescribed cold ones. He was also subject to certain seasonal disorders which recurred every year: in early spring a tight- ness of the diaphragm; and when the sirocco blew, catarrh. These so weakened his constitution that either hot or cold weather caused him great distress.

82. In winter he wore no fewer than four tunics and a heavy woollen gown above his undershirt; and below that a woollen chest protector; also underpants and woollen gaiters. In summer he slept with the bedroom door open, or in the courtyard beside a fountain, having someone to fan him; and could not bear the rays even of the the winter sun, but always wore a broad-brimmed hat when he walked in the open air, even at home. He preferred to travel by litter, at night, and his bearers kept so leisurely a pace that they were two days in arriving at Praeneste or Tibur; yet, whenever it was possible to reach his destination by sea, he did so. Indeed, he pampered his health, especially by not bathing too often and being usually content with an oil rub - or with a sweat-bath beside a fire, after which he took a douche of water either warmed or allowed to stand in the sun until it had lost its chill. When hot brine or warm Albulan water(1) was prescribed for his rheumatism he did no more than sit on a wooden bath-seat - calling it by the Spanish name dureta - and alternately dip his hands and feet into the bath.

83. As soon as the Civil Wars were over Augustus discontinued his riding and fencing exercises on the Campus Martius and used, instead, to play catch with two companions, or hand-ball with several. But soon he was content to go riding, or take walks, muffled in a cloak or blanket, that ended with a sprint and some jumping. Sometimes he went fishing as a relaxation; sometimes he played at dice, marbles, or nuts in the company of little boys, and was always on the lookout for ones with pretty faces and cheerful chatter, especially Syrians and Moors - he loathed people who were dwarfish or in any way deformed, regarding them as freaks of nature and bringers of bad luck.

84. Even in his boyhood Augustus had studied rhetoric with great eagerness and industry, and during the Mutina campaign, busy though he was, is said to have read, written, and declaimed daily. From that time onwards he carefully drafted every address intended for delivery to the Senate, the popular Assembly, or the troops; though gifted with quite a talent for extempore speech. What is more, he avoided the embarrassment of forgetting his words, or the drudgery of memorizing them, by always reading from a manuscript. All important statements made to individuals, and even to his wife Livia, were first committed to notebooks and then repeated aloud; he was haunted by a fear of saying either too much or too little if he spoke off-hand. His articulation of words, constantly practised under an elocution teacher, was pleasant and rather unusual; but sometimes, when his voice proved inadequate for addressing a large crowd, he called a herald.

85. Augustus wrote numerous prose works on a variety of subjects, some of which he read aloud to a group of his closer friends as though in a lecture-hall: the Reply to Brutes' Eulogy of Cato, for instance. In this case, however, he tired just before the end - being then already an old man - and handed the last roll to Tiberius, who finished it for him. Among his other works were An Encouragement to the Study of Philosophy and thirteen books of My Autobiography, which took the story only up to the time of the Cantabrian War. He made occasional attempts at verse composition; including Sicily, a short poem in hexameters, and an equally short collection of Epigrams, most of them composed at the Baths. Both these books survive; but growing disc satisfied with the style of his tragedy, Ajax, which he had begun in great excitement, he destroyed it. When friends asked: 'Well, what has Ajax been doing lately?' he answered: 'Ajax has fallen on my sponge.'

86. He cultivated a simple and easy oratorical style, avoiding purple passages, artfully contrived prose-rhythms, and 'the stink of farfetched phrases', as he called it; his main object being to say what he meant as plainly as possible. An anxiety not to let his audience or his readers lose their way in his sentences explains why he put such prepositions as to or in before the names of cities(I), and why he often repeated the same conjunction several times where a single appearance would have been less awkward, if more confusing. He expressed contempt for both innovators and archaizers, as equally mischievous, and would attack them with great violence: especially his dear friend Maecenas, whose ' myrrh-distilling ringlets' he parodied mercilessly. Even Tiberius, who had a habit of introducing obsolete and pedantic phrases into his speeches, did not escape Augustus' ridicule, and Antony was for him a madman who wrote ' as though he wanted to be wondered at rather than understood'. He made fun of Antony's bad taste and inconsistent literary style: 'Your use of antique diction borrowed by Sallust from Cato's Origins suggests that you are in two minds about imitating Annius Cimber or Veranius Flaccus. Or are you trying to acclimatize in Latin the nonsensicalities of those garrulous Asiatic orators?' And to a letter praising the intelligence of his grand-daughter Agrippina, he adds: 'But please take great care to avoid affectation in writing or talking.'

87. Augustus' everyday language must have contained many whimsical expressions of his own coinage, to judge from letters in his own handwriting. Thus, he often wrote 'they will pay on the Greek Kalends'; which meant 'never' - because the reckoning by Kalends is a purely Roman convention. Another of his favourite remarks was: 'Let us be satisfied with this Cato! ' - meaning that one should make the most of contemporary circumstances, however poorly they might compare with the past. He also had a favourite metaphor for swift and sudden actions: ' Quicker than boiled asparagus.' Here is a list of unusual synonyms which constantly appear in Augustus' letters:

baceolus (dolt) for: stultus (fool)

pulleiaceus (wooden-headed) for: cerritus (crazy)

vapide se habere (feel flat) for: male se habere (feel bad)

betizare (be a beetroot) for: languere (be languid) - on the analogy of the colloquial form lachanizare.

Among his grammatical peculiarities occur the forms simus for sumus (we are), and domos for domuos (of home), to which he always clung as a sign that they were his considered choice. I have noticed one particular habit of his: rather than break a long word at the end of a line and carry forward to the next whatever letters were left over, he would write these underneath the first part of the word and draw a loop to connect them with it.

88. Instead of paying a strict regard to orthography, as formulated by the grammarians, he inclined towards phonetic spelling. Of course, most writers make such slips as transposing or omitting whole syllables, as well as single letters; so I should not have mentioned that Augustus often did the same but for my surprise on finding, in more than one book of memoirs, the story that he once retired a governor of consular rank for being ill-educated enough to write ixi for ipsi (the same men). When Augustus wrote in cypher he simply substituted the next letter of the alphabet for the one required, except that he wrote AA for X.

89. He had ambitions to be as proficient in Greek as in Latin, and did very well at it. His tutor was Apollodorus of Pergamum, who accompanied him to Apollonia, though a very old man, and taught him elocution. Afterwards Augustus spent some time with Areus the philosopher, and his sons Dionysius and Nicanor, who broadened his general education; but never learned to speak Greek with real fluency, and never ventured on any Greek literary composition. Indeed, if he ever had occasion to use the language he would write down whatever it might be in Latin and get someone to make a translation. Yet nobody could describe him as ignorant of Greek poetry, because he greatly enjoyed the Old Comedy, and often put plays of that period on the stage. His chief interest in the literature of both languages was the discovery of moral precepts, with suitable anecdotes attached, capable of public or private application; and he would transcribe passages of this sort for the attention of his generals or provincial governors, whenever he thought it necessary. He even read whole volumes aloud to the Senate, and issued proclamations commending them to the people - such as Quintus Metellus' On the Need for Larger Families, and Rutilius' On the Height of Buildings -just to prove that he had been anticipated in his recommendations by far earlier thinkers.

Augustus gave all possible encouragement to intellectuals: he would politely and patiently attend readings not only of their poems and historical works, but of their speeches and dialogues; yet objected to being made the theme of any work unless the author were known as a serious and reputable writer, and often warned the praetors not to let his name be vulgarized by its constant occurrence in prize orations.

90. As for Augustus' attitude to religion: he is recorded to have been scared of thunder and lightning, against which he always carried a piece of seal-skin as an amulet, and to have taken refuge in an underground vault whenever a heavy storm threatened - because, as I have already mentioned, he had once narrowly escaped being struck on a night march which frightened him badly.

9I. Warnings conveyed in dreams, either his own or those dreamed by others, were not lost on him: for example, before the battle of Philippi, when so ill that he decided not to leave his tent, he changed his mind on account of a friend's dream - most fortunately, too, as it proved. For the camp was captured and a party of the enemy, breaking into his tent, plunged their swords through and through his bed under the impression that he was still in it, tearing the bed-clothes to ribbons. Every spring he had a series of ugly dreams, but none of the horrid visions seen in them came true; whereas what he occasionally dreamed at other seasons tended to be reliable. One day, after he had paid frequent visits to the Temple of Jupiter the Thunderer, founded by himself on the Capitoline Hill, Capitoline Jupiter approached him in a dream with a complaint that the newcomer was stealing his worshippers. He replied: 'I put the Thunderer so close to your Temple because I had decided to give you a janitor.' When Augustus awoke, he hung a set of bells from the gable of the new building to make it look like a front door. Because of another dream he used to sit in a public place once a year holding out his hand for the people to give him coppers, as though he were a beggar.

92. Augustus had absolute faith in certain premonitory signs: considering it bad luck to thrust his right foot into the left shoe as he got out of bed, but good luck to start a long journey or voyage during a drizzle of rain, which would ensure success and a speedy return. Prodigies made a particularly strong impression on him. Once, when a palm-tree pushed its way between the paving stones in front of his house he had it transplanted to the inner court beside his family gods, and lavished care on it. When he visited Capreae, the drooping branches of a moribund old oak suddenly regained their vigour, which so delighted him that he arranged to buy the island from the city of Neapolis in exchange for Aenaria. He also had a superstition against starting a journey on the day after a market-day, or undertaking any important task on the Nones of a month - although, in this case, as he explained to Tiberius in a letter, it was merely the unlucky non-sound of the word that affected him.

93. Augustus showed great respect towards all ancient and longestablished foreign rites, but despised the rest. Once, for example, after becoming an adept in the Eleusinian Mysteries at Athens, he judged a case at Rome in which the privileges of the priests of the Attic Ceres were questioned. Since certain religious secrets had to be quoted in the evidence, he cleared the court, dismissed his legal advisers and settled the dispute in camera. On the other hand, during his journey through Egypt he would not go out of his way, however slightly, to honour the divine Apis bull; and praised his grandson Gaius for not offering prayers when he visited Jerusalem

94. At this point it might be well to list the omens, occurring before, on, and after the day of Augustus' birth, from which his future greatness and lasting good fortune could clearly be prognosticated.

In ancient days part of the city wall of Velitrae had been struck by lightning and the soothsayers prophesied that a native of the place would one day rule the world. Confidence in this prediction led the citizens to declare immediate war against Rome, and to keep on fighting until they were nearly wiped out; only centuries later did the world-ruler appear in the person of Augustus.

According to Julius Marathus, a public portent warned the Roman people some months before Augustus' birth that Nature was making ready to provide them with a king; and this caused the Senate such consternation that they issued a decree which forbade the rearing of any male child for a whole year. However, a group of senators whose wives were expectant prevented the decree from being filed at the Treasury and thus becoming law - for each of them hoped that the prophesied King would be his own son.

Then there is a story which I found in a book called Theologumena, by Asclepiades of Mendes. Augustus' mother, Atia, with certain married women friends, once attended a solemn midnight service at the Temple of Apollo, where she had her litter set down, and presently fell asleep as the others also did. Suddenly a serpent glided up, entered her, and then glided away again. On awakening, she purified herself, as if after intimacy with her husband. An irremovable coloured mark in the shape of a serpent, which then appeared on her body, made her ashamed to visit the public baths any more; and the birth of Augustus nine months later suggested a divine paternity. Atia dreamed that her intestines were carried up to Heaven and overhung all lands and seas; and Octavius, that the sun rose from between her thighs.

Augustus' birth coincided with the Senate's famous debate on the Catilinarian conspiracy, and when Octavius arrived late, because of Atia's confinement, Publius Nigidius Figulus the astrologer, hearing at what hour the child had been delivered, cried out: ' The ruler of the world is now born.' Everyone believes this story.

Octavius, during a subsequent expedition through the wilder parts of Thrace, reached a grove sacred to Father Liber, where he consulted the priests about his son's destiny. After performing certain barbaric rites, they gave him the same response as Figulus; for the wine they had poured over the altar caused a pillar of flame to shoot up far above thc roof of the shrine into the sky - a sign never before granted except to Alexander the Great when he sacrificed at that very altar. That night Octavius had another dream: his son appeared in superhuman majesty, armed with the thunderbolt, sceptre, and regal ornaments ofJupiter Best and Greatest, crowned with a solar diadem, and riding in a belaurelled chariot drawn by twelve dazzlingly white horses.

Gaius Drusus records that, one evening, the infant Augustus was placed by the nurse in his cradle on the ground-floor, but had vanished by daybreak; at last a search party found him lying on the top of a lofty tower, his face turned towards the rising sun. Once, when he was just learning to talk at his grandfather's country seat, the frogs broke into a loud chorus of croaking: he told them to stop, and it is locally claimed that no frog has croaked there since. On a later occasion, as he sat lunching in a copse beside the Appian Way, close to the fourth milestone, an eagle, to his great surprise, swooped at him, snatched a crust from his hand, carried it aloft - and then, to his even greater surprise, glided gently down again and restored what it had stolen.

Quintus Catulus, after rededicating the Capitol, dreamed two dreams on successive nights. First, Jupiter Best and Greatest beckoned to one of several noblemen's sons who were playing near his altar, and slipped an image of the Goddess Rome into the fold of his gown. Then Catulus dreamed that he saw the same boy sitting in the lap of Capitoline Jupiter; he tried to have him removed, but the God countermanded the order because the boy was being reared as the saviour of Rome. Next day, Catulus met Augustus, looked at him with startled eyes - they had never met before - and pronounced him the identical boy of his dreams. Another version of Catulus' first dream is that a crowd of noblemen's children were begging Jupiter for a guardian; the God then pointed to one of them, saying: ' Whatever you need, ask him!', lightly touched the boy's mouth with his fingers and laid them on his own lips.

On a New Year's Day, Cicero escorted Julius Caesar, as Consul, to the Capitol and happened to tell his friends what he had dreamed the night before: a boy of noble features, let down from Heaven by a golden chain, stood at the Temple door, and was handed a whip by CapitolineJupiter. At that moment, Cicero's eye caught Augustus, whom his grand-uncle Caesar had brought to the ceremony but whom few of those present knew by sight. He cried: 'There goes the very boy!'

When Augustus celebrated his coming of age, the seams of the senatorial gown which Caesar had allowed him to wear split and it fell at his feet. Some of the bystanders interpreted the accident as a sign that the senatorial Order itself would some day be brought to his feet.

As Julius Caesar was felling a wood near Munda in Spain to clear a site for his camp, he noticed a palm-tree and ordered it to be spared, as a presage of victory. The tree then suddenly put out a new shoot which, a few days later, had grown so tall as to over-shadow it. What was more, a flock of doves began to nest in the fronds, although doves notoriously dislike hard, spiny foliage. This prodigy was the immediate reason, they say, for Caesar's desire that his grand-nephew, and no one else, should succeed him.

At Apollonia, Augustus and Agrippa together visited the house of Theogenes the astrologer, and climbed upstairs to his observatory; they both wished to consult him about their future careers. Agrippa went first and was prophesied such almost incredibly good fortune that Augustus expected a far less encouraging response, and felt ashamed to disclose the time of his birth. Yet when at last, after a deal of hesitation, he grudgingly supplied the information for which both were pressing him, Theogenes rose and flung himself at his feet; and this gave Augustus so implicit a faith in the destiny awaiting him that he even ventured to publish his horoscope, and struck a silver coin stamped with Capricorn, the sign under which he had been born.

95. When he returned to Rome from Apollonia at news of Caesar's assassination, the sky was clear of clouds, but a rainbow-like halo formed around the sun; and suddenly lightning struck the tomb of Caesar's daughter Julia. Then, when he first took the auspices as Consul, twelve vultures appeared, as they had appeared to Romulus; and the livers of all the sacrificial victims were seen to be doubled inwards at the bottom - an omen which, experts in soothsaying agreed, presaged a wonderful future for him.

96. Augustus even foreknew the successful conclusion of his wars. At Bononia, where the army of the Triumvirs Augustus, Antony, and Lepidus was stationed, an eagle perched on Augustus' tent and defended itself vigorously against the converging attack of two ravens, bringing both of them down. This augury was noted and understood by the troops as portending a rupture between their three leaders, which later took place. On Augustus' way to Philippi, a Thessalian stopped him to report having been assured of victory by Caesar's ghost, whom he met on a lonely road. Sacrificing one day before the walls of Perusia, Augustus had failed to secure a satisfactory omen, and sent for more victims; at this point the enemy made a sudden sortie from the beleaguered city, and carried off the entire sacrificial apparatus. The soothsayers unanimously reassured him that whatever disasters had been threatened by the omens would fall upon the present possessors of the entrails; and this proved to be true.

On the eve of the naval battle off Sicily, Augustus was walking along the shore when a fish leaped from the sea and fell at his feet. Before Actium, he was about to board his ship and give the signal for hostilities to begin, when he met a peasant driving an ass, and asked his name. The peasant replied: 'I am Eutychus ("Prosper") and my ass is called Nicon ("Victory").' To commemorate the victory, Augustus set up bronze statues of Eutychus and his ass on the camp site, which he made into a sacred enclosure.

97. Next, we come to Augustus' death and subsequent deification, both of which were predicted by evident signs. While he was closing a lustrum, or five-year period, with a purificatory ceremony in the crowded Campus Martius, an eagle circled around him several times, then flew to the near-by temple and perched above the first 'A' of Agrippa's name. As soon as Augustus noticed this he ordered Tiberius, who was acting as his colleague in the Censorship, to read out the usual vows for the next five-year period; because, though having composed and recorded them on a tablet, he would not make himself responsible for vows payable after his death. At about the same time lightning melted the initial letter of his name on the inscription below one of his statues. This was interpreted to mean that he would live only another hundred days, since the remainder of the word, namely AESAR, is the Etruscan for 'god' - c being the Roman numeral 100.

Again, when sending Tiberius off to Illyricum and planning to accompany him as far as Beneventum, Augustus got held up by a long list of cases, and cried: 'I will stay here no longer, whoever tries to detain me ! ' These words were subsequently recalled as prophetic. He started offfor Beneventum by road but, on reaching Astura, met with a favourable breeze and decided to take ship that evening - although night-voyages were against his usual habits - and so caught a chill, the first symptom of which was diarrhoea.

98. After coasting past Campania, with its islands, he spent the next four days in his villa on Capreae, where he rested and amused himself. As he had sailed through the Gulf of Puteoli, the passengers and crew of a recently arrived Alexandrian ship had put on white robes and garlands, burned incense, and wished him the greatest of good fortune - because, they said, they owed their lives to him and their liberty to sail the seas: in a word, their entire freedom and prosperity. This incident gratified Augustus so deeply that he gave each member of his staff forty gold pieces, making them promise under oath to spend them only on Alexandrian trade goods. What was more, he made the last two or three days of his stay on Capreae the occasion for distributing among other little presents, Roman togas and Greek cloaks to the islanders; insisting that the Romans should talk Greek and dress like Greeks, and that the Greeks should do the opposite. He sat for a long time watching the gymnastic training of the many local ephebi (Capreae being a very conservative settlement). Afterwards he invited these young men to a banquet at which he presided, and not merely allowed, but expected them to play jokes, and freely scramble for the tokens which he threw, entitling the holders to fruit, sweetmeats, and the like. In fact, he indulged in every form of fun.

Augustus called the residential centre of Capreae 'the Land of Donothings', because some of his staff, now settled on the island, were growing so lazy; and referred to his friend Masgaba, who had died there in the previous year, as 'Ktistes', meaning 'the Founder'. When he noticed from his dining-room window that a crowd of torchbearers were attending Masgaba's tomb, he improvised this Greek line:

I see the Founder's tomb ablaze with fire . . .

then asked Thrasyllus, Tiberius' astrologer, who was reclining opposite him and did not understand the reference: 'What poet wrote that?' Thrasyllus hesitated, and Augustus capped his own line, reciting:

With torches, look, they honour Masgaba!

and again asked: 'Who wrote that?' Thrasyllus, unable to divine the authorship, mumbled: 'Both lines are very good, whoever the poet was.' Augustus burst out laughing and made a joke of it.

He next crossed over to Naples, although his stomach was weak from an intermittent recurrence of the same trouble, and watched an athletic competition which was held in his honour every five years. Finally, he started off with Tiberius and said goodbye to him at Beneventum. Feeling worse on the homeward journey, he took to his bed at Nola, and sent messengers to recall Tiberius - now headed for Illyricum. At his arrival Augustus had a long talk with him in private, after which he attended to no further important business.

99. On the day that he died, Augustus frequently inquired whether rumours of his illness were causing any popular disturbance. He called for a mirror, and had his hair combed and his lower jaw, which had fallen from weakness, propped up. Presently he summoned a group of friends and asked: 'Have I played my part in the farce of life creditably enough?' adding the theatrical tag:

If I have pleased you, kindly signify Appreciation with a warm goodbye.

Then he dismissed them, but when fresh visitors arrived from Rome, wanted to hear the latest news of the daughter of Drusus the Younger, who was ill. Finally, he kissed his wife with: 'Goodbye, Livia: never forget our marriage!' and died almost at once. He must have longed for such an easy exit, for whenever he had heard of anyone having passed away quickly and painlessly, he used to pray: 'May Heaven grant the same euthanasia to me and mine!' The only sign that his wits were wandering, just before he died, was his sudden cry of terror: 'Forty young men are carrying me of! ' But even this may be read as a prophecy rather than a delusion, because forty Praetorians were to form the guard of honour that conveyed him to his lying-in-state.

100. Augustus died in the same room as his father Octavius. That was I9 August, A.D. I4, at about 3 p.m., the Consuls of the year being Sextus Pompeius and Sextus Appuleius. In thirty-five days' time he would have attained the age of seventy-six. Senators from the neighbouring municipalities and veteran colonies bore the body, in stages, all the way from Nola to Bovillae - but at night, owing to the hot weather - laying it during the daytime in the town hall or principal temple of every halting place. From Bovillae, a party of Roman knights carried it to the vestibule of his house at Rome.

The senators vied with one another in proposing posthumous honours for Augustus. Among the motions introduced were the following: that his funeral procession should pass through the Triumphal Gate preceded by the image of Victory from the Senate House, and that boys and girls of the nobility should sing his dirge; that on the day of his cremation iron rings should be worn instead of gold ones; that his ashes should be gathered by priests of the leading Colleges; that the name of the month 'August' should be transferred to September, because Augustus had been born in September but had died in the month now called August; and that the whole period between his birth and death should be officially entered in the Calendar as ' the Augustan Age '.

Though it was decided not to pay him excessive honours, he was given two funeral eulogies - by Tiberius from the forecourt ofJulius Caesar's Temple, and by Tiberius' son Drusus from the Old Rostra after which a party of senators shouldered the body and took it to a pyre on the Campus Martius, where it was burned; and an expraetor actually swore that he had seen Augustus' spirit soaring up to Heaven through the flames. Leading knights, barefoot, and wearing unbelted tunics, then collected his ashes and placed them in the family Mausoleum. He had built this himself during his sixth consulship, between the Flaminian Way and the Tiber; at the same time converting the neighbourhood into a public park.

101. Augustus' will, composed on 3 April of the previous year, while Lucius Plancus and Gaius Silius were Consuls, occupied two note-books, written partly in his own hand, partly in those of his freedmen Polybius and Hilarion. The Vestal Virgins to whose safekeeping he had entrusted these documents now produced them, as well as three rolls, also sealed by him. All were opened and read in the House. It proved that he had appointed Tiberius and Livia heirs to the bulk of his estate, directing that Tiberius should take two-thirds and adopt the name 'Augustus', while Livia took the remaining third and adopted the name 'Augusta'. The heirs in the second degree were to be Tiberius' son Drusus, entitled to one-third of the reversion; and Germanicus, with his three sons, jointly entitled to the remainder. Many of Augustus' relatives and friends figured among the heirs in the third degree. He also left a bequest of 400,000 gold pieces to the Roman commons in general; 35,000 to the two tribes with which he had family connexions; ten to every Praetorian guardsman; five to every member of the city cohorts; three to every legionary soldier. These legacies were to be paid on the nail, because he had always kept enough cash for the purpose. There were other minor bequests, some as large as 200 gold pieces, which were not to be settled until a year after his death because:

'... my heirs will not receive more than 1,500,000 gold pieces; for, although my friends have bequeathed me some 14,000,000 in the last twenty years, nearly the whole of this sum, besides what came to me from my father, from my adoptive father, and from others, has been used for the benefit of the State.'

He had given orders that 'should anything happen' to his daughter Julia, or his grand-daughter of the same name, their bodies must be excluded from the Mausoleum. One of the three sealed rolls contained directions for his own funeral; another, a record of his reign, which he wished to have engraved on bronze and posted at the entrance to the Mausoleum; the third, a statement of how many serving troops were stationed in different parts of the Empire, what money reserves were held by the Public Treasury and the Privy Purse, and what revenues were due for collection. He also supplied the names of freedmen and slave-secretaries who could furnish details, under all these heads, on demand.