I have freed the sea from pirates. In that war with the slaves I delivered to their masters for punishment about thirty thousand slaves who had fled from their masters and taken up arms against the state.[118] The whole of Italy voluntarily took the oath of allegiance to me, and demanded me as leader in that war in which I conquered at Actium. The provinces of Gaul, Spain, Africa, Sicily and Sardinia swore the same allegiance to me.[119] There were more than seven hundred senators who at that time fought under my standards, and among these, up to the day on which these words are written, eighty-three have either before or since been made consuls, and about one hundred and seventy have been made priests.[120]
c. 26.
I have extended the boundaries of all the provinces of the Roman people which were bordered by nations not yet subjected to our sway.[121] I have reduced to a state of peace the Gallic and Spanish provinces, and Germany, the lands enclosed by the ocean from Gades to the mouth of the Elbe.[122] The Alps from the region nearest the Adriatic as far as the Tuscan Sea I have brought into a state of peace, without waging an unjust war upon any people.[123] My fleet has navigated the ocean from the mouth of the Rhine as far as the boundaries of the Cimbri, where before that time no Roman had ever penetrated by land or sea;[124] and the Cimbri and Charydes and Semnones and other German peoples of that section, by means of legates, sought my friendship and that of the Roman people.[125] By my command and under my auspices two armies at almost the same time have been led into Ethiopia and into Arabia, which is called “the Happy,” and very many of the enemy of both peoples have fallen in battle, and many towns have been captured. Into Ethiopia the advance was as far as Nabata, which is next to Meroe.[126] In Arabia the army penetrated as far as the confines of the Sabaei, to the town Mariba.[127]
c. 27.
I have added Egypt to the empire of the Roman people.[128] Of greater Armenia, when its king Artaxes was killed I could have made a province, but I preferred, after the example of our fathers, to deliver that kingdom to Tigranes, the son of king Artavasdes, and grandson of king Tigranes; and this I did through Tiberius Nero, who was then my son-in-law.[129] And afterwards, when the same people became turbulent and rebellious, they were subdued by Gaius, my son, and I gave the sovereignty over them to king Ariobarzanes, the son of Artabazes, king of the Medes, and after his death to his son Artavasdes. When he was killed I sent into that kingdom Tigranes, who was sprung from the royal house of the Armenians.[130] I recovered all the provinces across the Adriatic Sea, which extend toward the east, and Cyrenaica, at that time for the most part in the possession of kings, together with Sicily and Sardinia, which had been engaged in a servile war.[131]
c. 28.
I have established colonies of soldiers[132] in Africa, Sicily, Macedonia, the two Spains, Achaia, Asia, Syria, Gallia Narbonensis and Pisidia.[133] Italy also has twenty-eight colonies established under my auspices, which within my lifetime have become very famous and populous.[134]
c. 29.
I have recovered from Spain and Gaul, and from the Dalmatians, after conquering the enemy, many military standards which had been lost by other leaders.[135] I have compelled the Parthians to give up to me the spoils and standards of three Roman armies, and as suppliants to seek the friendship of the Roman people. Those standards, moreover, I have deposited in the sanctuary which is in the temple of Mars the Avenger.[136]