[-36-] "I shall begin at the point where he also began to enter politics, that is, from his earliest manhood. This, indeed, is one of the greatest achievements of Augustus,—that when he had just emerged from boyhood and was entering upon the state of youth, he paid attention to education so long as public affairs were well managed by the famous Cæsar, the demi-god: when after the conspiracy against the latter the whole commonwealth was thrown into confusion, he at the same time amply avenged his father and rendered a much needed aid to you, not fearing the multitude of his enemies nor dreading the greatness of the business nor hesitating through his own immaturity. Yet what deed like this can be cited of Alexander of Macedon or our Romulus, who have the reputation of having done something brilliant when very young? But these I shall pass over, lest from merely comparing them with him and bringing them up,—and that among you who are acquainted with him no less than I,—I may be thought to be diminishing the greatness of Augustus. If I am to do this sort of thing, I should be justified only if I looked at his deeds beside those of Hercules: yet even then I should fail of my effect, inasmuch as the latter killed only serpents when he was a child, a stag and a boar when he was a man,—oh, yes, and by Jupiter a lion also, though reluctantly and in obedience to a command; whereas our hero voluntarily made wars and enacted laws not among beasts but among men, carefully preserved the commonwealth, and himself gained brilliance. It was for this that you chose him prætor and appointed him consul at that age when some are unwilling even to serve in the army.
[-37-] "This was the beginning of political life for Augustus, and it is the beginning of my speech about him. Soon after, seeing that the largest and best portion both of the people and of the senate was in accord with him, but that Lepidus and Antony, Sextus, Brutus, and Cassius were employing rebels, he feared that the city might become involved in many wars,—civil wars,—at once, and be so torn asunder and exhausted as not to be able to revive in any fashion; and so he manipulated them very cleverly and to the greatest public good. He attached himself to the strong ones, who were menacing the very city, and with them fought the others till he made an end of them: when these were out of the way he in turn freed us from the former. He chose against his will to surrender a few to their wrath so that he might save the majority, and he chose to assume a friendly attitude toward them individually so as not to have to fight with them all at once. From this he derived no individual gain but aided us all most evidently. Why should one speak at length to enumerate his deeds in the wars both at home and abroad? Consider especially that the former ought never to have occurred at all and that the latter by the conquests gained show their advantages better than any words, moreover that they largely depended upon chance, that the successes were obtained with the aid of many citizens and many allies so that these deserve the credit equally with him, and finally that the achievements might possibly be compared with those of some others. These, accordingly, I shall put aside. You can behold and read them inscribed in letters and characters in many places. I shall speak only of the works which belong to Augustus himself, which have never been performed by any other man, and have not only caused our city to survive from many dangers of a sorts but have rendered it more prosperous and powerful. The mention of them will confer upon him a unique glory and will afford the elder among you an innocent pleasure while giving the younger men an exact instruction in the character and constitution of the government.
[-38-] "This Augustus, then, whom you deemed worthy of this title for the very reasons just cited, as soon as he had freed himself from the civil wars after acting and enduring (not in a way that pleased himself) as Heaven approved, first of all preserved the lives of most of his opponents, who were survivors of the army, and thus he in no way imitated Sulla, called the Fortunate. Not to give you a list of all of them, who does not know about Sosius, about Scaurus the brother of Sextus, and particularly about Lepidus, who lived so long a time after his defeat and continued to be high priest his whole life through? Next he honored his companions in conflict with many great gifts, but did not allow them to act in any arrogant way or to be wanton. You know thoroughly among others in this category both Mæcenas and Agrippa, so that there is no need of my enumerating the names. Augustus had two qualities, too, which were never united in any one else. Some conquerors, I know, have spared their enemies and others have refused to allow their companions to give way to license. But both sorts of behavior at once, continually without any exception, were never found in the same man. Here is evidence. Sulla and Marius treated as enemies even the children of those who fought against them. Why need I cite the other less important men? Pompey and Cæsar were in general guiltless of this conduct, but permitted their friends to do not a few things that were contrary to their own principles. But this man had each of the two virtues so fused and intermingled that to his adversaries he made defeat look like victory and to his comrades he showed a happiness in excellence.
[-39-] "After doing this and quieting by kindness all that remained of factional disputes and imposing temperance by his benefits upon the victorious military, he might as a result of this and the weapons and the money at his command have been indisputably the sole lord of everything, as, indeed, he had been made by the very course of events. Yet he refused, and like a good physician, who takes in hand a disease-ridden body and heals it, he restored everything to you after making it well. And to what this action amounted you can best realize from the fact that our fathers spoke in praise of Pompey and Metellus, who was formerly prominent, because they voluntarily disbanded the forces with which they had been engaged in war. Now if they, who had but a small force and a merely temporary one and besides saw opponents who would not allow them to do otherwise,—if they received praise for doing this,—how could one speak fittingly of the magnanimity of Augustus? He held all your forces, however great, he was master of all your funds, vast in amount, had no one to fear or suspect: but whereas he might have ruled alone with the approval of all, he would not accept such a course, but laid the arms, the provinces, the money at your feet. Wherefore you with wise insistence and proper prudence would not have it nor allow him to retire to private life; you knew well that democracy would never accommodate itself to such tremendous interests, but that the superintendence of a single person would most surely preserve them, and so refused what was nominally independence but really factional discord. And making choice of him, whom you had proved worthy by his very deeds, you compelled him to stand at your head for a time at least. When you had in this way tested him even more than before, you finally forced him a second, a third, a fourth, and a fifth time to remain as manager of public affairs. [-40-] It was only natural. Who would not choose to be safe without trouble, to be prosperous without danger, to enjoy unsparingly the blessings of government and not to be disturbed by cares for its maintenance? Who was there that could rule even his private possessions better than Augustus, to say nothing of the goods of so many human beings? He accepted the trying and hostile provinces for his own portion to guard and preserve, but restored to you all such others as were peaceful and free from danger. Though he supported such a large standing army to fight in your behalf, he let the soldiers be troublesome to none of his own countrymen but rendered them to outsiders most terrifying guardians, to the people at home unarmed and unwarlike. The senators in places of authority were not deprived of appeal to the lot, but prizes for excellence were furnished them in addition. He did not destroy the power of the ballot in their decisions and he guaranteed safety in free speech as well. Cases difficult to decide he transferred from the people to the searching justice of the courts, but preserved to the popular body the dignity of the elections and trained citizens in these to seek a means of honor, not of strife. He even cut away the ambitious greed of office seekers and put a regard for reputation in its place. His own money, which he increased by legitimate methods, he spent for public needs: for the public funds he cared as if they were his own, while he refrained from touching them, as belonging to others. He saw that all public works that were falling to decay were repaired, and deprived no one connected with their renovation of the glory attaching: many structures he built anew (some in his own name, some in that of another), or else gave others charge of erecting them. Consequently, his gaze was directed toward public utility and privately he grudged no one the fame to be derived from public service. Wantonness among his own kin he recompensed relentlessly, but the offences of others he treated with humaneness. Those who had traits of excellence he allowed to come as near as they could to his own standard, and with the conduct of such as lived otherwise he did not concern himself minutely. Among those who conspired against him he invoked justice upon only those whose lives were of no profit even to themselves. The rest he placed in such a position that for a great while they could obtain no excuse either true or false for attacking him. It is nothing surprising that he was occasionally the object of conspiracies, for even the gods do not please all alike. The excellence of good rulers is discernible not in the villainies of others but in their own good behavior.
[-41-] "I have spoken, Quirites, of his greatest and most striking characteristics in a rather summary way. For if one should desire to enumerate all of his great points individually, it would need many days. Furthermore, I know that though you will have heard so few facts from me, they will lead you to remember for yourselves everything else, and it will seem almost as if I had spoken that too. In the rest that I have said about him I have not been speaking in a spirit of vainglory [7], nor has that been your state of mind in listening; but I intended that his many noble achievements might obtain an ever memorable glory in your souls. Who would not feel inclined to make mention of his senators?—how without giving offence he removed the scum that had come to the surface from the factions, how by this very act he exalted the remainder, magnified it by increasing the property requirement, and enriched it by grants of money; how he voted on an equality with the senators and had their help in making changes; how he communicated to them all the greatest and most important matters either in the meeting-place or else at his house, whither he called different members at different times because of his age and bodily infirmity. Who would not like to cite the condition of the rest of the Romans, before whom he set public works, money, games, festivals, amnesty, an abundance of food, safety not only from the enemy and evildoers but even from the acts of Heaven, nor such alone as befall by day, but by night as well? Or, again, the allies?—how he made their freedom free from danger and their alliance to involve no loss. Or the subject nations?—how no one of them was treated with insolence or abuse. How can one forget a man who was in private life poor, in public life rich, saving in his own case but liberal of expenditures for others?—one who even endured all toil and danger for you but would not submit to your escorting him when he went forth on any expedition or to your meeting him when he returned: one who on festivals admitted even the populace to his home, but on other days greeted even the senate only in its chambers? How could one forget the number and precision as well of his laws, which contained for the wronged an all-sufficient consolation and for the wrongdoers a not inhuman punishment? Or his rewards offered to those who married and had children? Or the prizes given to the soldiers without disadvantage to any other person? Then there is the fact of his being satisfied with our possessions once for all acquired by the will of Destiny, and his refusal to subjugate additional territory. For while imagining that we bore a wider sway we might meantime lose all we had. You recall how he always shared the joys and sorrows, the jests and earnestness of his intimate friends, and allowed absolutely all who could make any useful suggestion to feel free to speak; how he praised those who spoke the truth and hated flatterers; how he bestowed upon many large sums from his own means, and how when aught was bequeathed to him by men with children he restored it all to those children. What oblivion is dark enough to bury all this? It was for this, therefore, I say, that you naturally made him your head and a father of the people, that you decked him with many marks of esteem and numerous consulships and finally declared him a hero and published him as immortal. Hence we ought not either to mourn for him, but to give his body back now in due time to Nature, and to glorify his spirit, as that of a god, forever."
[-42-] This was what Tiberius read. Directly after, the same men as before took up the couch and carried it through the triumphal gateway, according to the senate's decree. There were present and took part in carrying him out the senate and the equestrian class, the women of his family, and the pretorian guard; and nearly everybody else in the city was in attendance. When the body had been placed on the pyre in the Campus Martius, all the priests marched about it first; and then the knights, all the magistrates and others, and the heavy-armed force for garrison duty ran around it; and they cast upon it all the triumphal decorations which any of them had ever received from him for any deed of valor. Next the centurions took torches, conformably to a decree of the senate, and kindled the fire from beneath. So it was consumed, and an eagle released from it flew aloft appearing to bear his spirit into heaven. When this had been accomplished most of those present departed; but Livia remained on the spot for five days in company with the most prominent knights, and gathered his bones, which she placed in the monument.
The show of grief required by law was prolonged [-43-] only for a few days by the men, but by the women, according to a decree, for a whole year. Real grief not in the hearts of many at the time, but later felt by all the citizens. Augustus had been accessible to all and was accustomed to aid many persons in the matter of money. He used to bestow honors scrupulously upon his friends and delighted exceedingly to have them speak frankly. One instance, in addition to what has been told, occurred in the case of Athenodorus. The latter was once brought into his room in a covered litter, as if it were some woman, and leaping from it sword in hand asked: "Aren't you afraid that some one may come in this way and kill you?" Instead of being angry Augustus thanked him for his suggestion.
The people consequently were wont to recall these traits of his, and how he did not get blindly enraged at those who injured him as well as how he kept faith with even such as were unworthy of it. There was a robber named Corocotta, who flourished in Spain, and the emperor was in the first place so angry at him that he offered twenty-five myriads to the man that captured him alive. Later the robber came to him of his own accord, and he not only did him no harm but made him richer by the amount of money mentioned. Hence the Romans missed him mightily for these reasons as well as because by mingling monarchy with democracy he preserved their freedom for them and secured orderliness and security, so that their lives, free from the audacities of democracy, free from the wantonness of tyrannies, were cast in a liberty of moderation and under a monarchy without terrors; they were subjects of royalty, yet not slaves, and democratic citizens without discord. [-44-] If any of them remembered his former deeds in the course of the civil wars, they laid them to the pressure of circumstances, and they thought it fair to look for his real disposition, which had given him undisputed authority. This offered, in truth, a mighty contrast. Any one who goes carefully into each of his separate actions will find this true. In regard to the mass of them I must record curtly that he stopped all factional disputes, transformed the government in a way to give it power, and strengthened it greatly. Therefore if any deed of violence is encountered,—as is often bound to happen when the face of a situation shifts unexpectedly,—one might more justly blame the circumstances themselves than him.
Not the smallest factor in his glory was the length of his reign. The majority of those that had lived under a democracy and the more powerful had time to die. Those who were left, knowing nothing of that form of government and having been reared entirely or mostly under existing conditions, were not only not displeased with them,—they had become so familiar,—but took delight in them, for they saw that these were better and more free from terror than others of which they heard.
[-45-] Though the people knew this during his life they nevertheless realized it more fully after his decease. Human nature is so constituted that in good fortune it does not perceive its prosperity so fully as it misses it when evil days arrive. This was the case then in regard to Augustus. When they found his successor Tiberius not the same sort of man they longed for the previous emperor. Persons with their wits about them had some immediate evidence of the change in the constitution. The consul Pompeius, who went out to meet the men bearing the body of Augustus, received a blow in the leg and had to be carried back with the body. An owl sat over the senate-house again at the very first sitting of the senate after his death and uttered many ill-omened cries. The two men differed so from each other that some suspected that Augustus with full knowledge of Tiberius's character had purposely appointed him for successor to the end that he himself might have greater glory. This began to be rumored at a later date.