[-31-] When now Agrippa, whom he loved for his excellence and not through any compulsion, had died, the emperor found that he needed an assistant in the public business, one who would far surpass the rest in both honor and power, who might manage everything opportunely and be free from envy and plots. Therefore he reluctantly chose Tiberius, for his own grandsons were at this time still minors. He caused him also to divorce his wife, though she was a daughter of Agrippa by another marriage and had one child an infant and was soon to give birth to another; and having betrothed Julia to him he sent him out against the Pannonians. This people had for a time been quiet, fearing Agrippa, but now after his death they revolted. Tiberius subdued them, having ravaged considerable of their territory and done much injury to its inhabitants; he had as enthusiastic allies the Scordisci, who were neighbors of theirs and similarly equipped. He took away their arms and sold for export most of the male population that was of age. For these achievements the senate voted him a triumph, but Augustus did not allow him to hold it, granting him instead the triumphal honors.
[-32-] Drusus had this same experience. The Sugambri and their allies, owing to the absence of Augustus and the fact that the Gauls were restive under the yoke of slavery, had become hostile, and he therefore occupied the subject territory before them, sending for the foremost men on the pretext of the festival which they celebrate even now about the altar of Augustus at Lugdunum. Also he observed the Celtae crossing the Rhine and drove them back. Next he crossed over to the land of the Usipetes opposite the very island of the Batavi, and from there marched along the river to the Sugambri country, devastating vast stretches. He sailed along the Rhine to the ocean, conciliated the Frisii, and traversing the lake invaded Chaucis, where he ran in danger, as his boats were left high and dry at the ebb-tide of the ocean. He was saved at this time by the Frisii (who joined his expedition with infantry), and withdrew, for it was now winter.
[B.C. 11(a. u. 743)]
Coming to Rome he was made aedile[12]in the consulship of Quintus Aelius and Paulus Fabius, though he had already prætor's honors.
[-33-] At the opening of the spring he set out again to the war, crossed the Rhine, and subjugated the Usipetes. He bridged the Lupia, invaded the country of the Sugambri and advanced through it into Cheruscis, as far as the Visurgis. He was able to do this because the Sugambri in anger at the Chatti, the only tribe among their neighbors that had refused to join their alliance, had made a campaign of the whole population against them. Drusus took this opportunity to traverse their country unnoticed. And he would nave crossed also the Visurgis, had not provisions grown scarce and the their country, and though beaten at first vanquished them in turn and ravaged both that land and the territory of adjacent tribes which had taken part in the uprising. Immediately he reduced all of them to subjugation, gaining control of some with their consent, terrifying others into reluctant submission, and engaging in pitched battles with others. Later, when some of them rebelled, he again enslaved them. And for this thanksgivings and triumphal honors were accorded him.
[-35-] While these events were occurring Augustus took a census, reckoning in all the property that belonged to him, as an individual might do, and also making a list of the senate. As he saw that many were not always present at the meetings he ordered that even less than four hundred might constitute a quorum for passing decrees. Previously that had been the minimum number for ratifying any measure. The senate and the people again contributed money to be spent on images of himself, but he would erect no such likeness, and only set up representations of the Public Health, of Concord, and of Peace. The citizens were always collecting money for statues to him, on the slightest excuse; and at last they ceased paying it privately, as before, but would come to him on the first day of the year and give, some more, some less. He, after adding as much or more again, would return it, not only to the senators but to all the rest. I have also heard the story that on one day of the year, following some oracle or dream, he would assume the guise of a beggar and would accept money from those who passed. This, whether trustworthy or not, is a prevailing tradition.
That year he gave Julia in marriage to Tiberius, and his sister Octavia dying, he caused her body to lie in state in the hero-shrine of Julius; on this occasion, too, he had a curtain over the corpse. He himself delivered there the funeral speech and Drusus, having changed his senatorial dress, had a place on the platform, for the mourning was a public affair. Her body was carried in procession by her sons-in-law: not all the honors voted to her were accepted by Augustus.
At this same time the first priest of Jupiter since [-36-] Merula was appointed; and the quaestors were ordered to pay careful heed to the decrees passed from time to time, because the tribunes and the ædiles, who had previously been entrusted with this business, transacted it through their assistants, and as a result some mistakes and confusion took place.
It was voted, moreover, that the temple of Janus Geminus, which was open, should be closed, on the assumption that wars had ceased.
[B.C. 10 (a. u. 744)]