FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: The events, however, run over into the following year.]
[Footnote 2: Interesting to compare are three citations from an unknown
Byzantine writer (in Excerpta cod. Paris, suppl. Gr. 607 A, edited by M.
Treu, Ohlau, 1880, p. 29 ff.), who seems to have used Dio as a source:
a) The mother of Augustus just one day previous to her travail beheld in a dream how her womb was snatched away and carried up into heaven.
b) And in the same night as Octavius was born his father thought that the sun rose from his wife's entrails.
c) And a certain senator, Nigidius Figulus, who was an astrologer, asked Octavius, the father of Augustus, why he was so slow in leaving his house. The latter replied that a son had been born to him. Nigidius thereupon exclaimed: "Ah, what hast thou done? Thou hast begotten a master for us!" The other believing it and being disturbed wished to make away with the child. But Nigidius said to him: "Thou hast not the power. For it hath not been granted thee to do this.">[
[Footnote 3: Suetonius in relating this anecdote (Life of Augustus, chapter 5) says that the senate-meeting in question was called to consider the conspiracy of Catiline. Since, however, Augustus is on all hands admitted to have been born a. d. IX. Kal. Octobr. and mention of Catiline's conspiracy was first made in the senate a. d. XII. Kal. Nov. (Cicero, Against Catiline, I, 3, 7), the claim of coincidence is evidently based on error.]
[Footnote 4: Compare again the same Byzantine writer quoted in footnote to chapter 1,—two excerpts:
d) Again, while he was growing up in the country, an eagle swooping down snatched from his hands the loaf of bread and again returning replaced it in his hands.
e) Again, during his boyhood, Cicero saw in a dream Octavius himself fastened to a golden chain and wielding a whip being let down from the sky to the summit of the Capitol.]