The location near the Porta Capena was chosen, because it was through that gate Augustus would enter the city, coming by the Appian Way from Brundisium. The altar was dedicated on Dec. 15, C. I. L. X, 8375. Cf. Dio, LI, 19; App. B. C. II, 106.
[60] Dio, LIV, 10, relates that in this year there were great tumults in connection with the consular comitia, and no election was possible. In consequence of this the senate sent messengers to Augustus urging him to deal with the trouble. Q. Lucretius, one of the delegates, was named consul by Augustus on the spot where they met. It is Mommsen’s idea (R. G., p. 48) that the story of Dio, and the statement of Augustus relate to the same event, and that Augustus was not willing to admit that so late in his reign, such disturbances could be, and that he therefore conveys the impression that what was really an appeal for aid was rather an embassy of honor. This Mommsen thinks quite in keeping with the general character and method of Augustus. Bormann, on the other hand (Schr. Nach., p. 29), sees no conflict in the two accounts. He believes that Dio narrates truthfully enough an earlier deputation sent to Augustus, possibly at Athens, some time before his return, and that Lucretius was named consul there by Augustus. Then, some time later, the deputation of honor, as recorded in the inscription, was sent into Campania.
[61] That this annual sacrifice was instituted July 4, 741, appears from C. I. L., I, 395. Feriae ex. s. c. quod eo die ara Pacis Augustae in campo Martio constituta est Nerone et Varo cos. Cf. Fasti of Præneste, Jan. 30, C. I. L., I, 313, for day of the actual dedication; also Ovid, Fasti I, 709; Dio, LIV, 25.
This altar was probably on the Flaminian Way by which Augustus returned from Gaul.
[62] The exact conditions necessary for the closing of the temple, viz., “peace won by victories” were first made known in 1882 by this perfected text of the Res Gestæ.
[63] Cf. Livy, I, 19; Varro, V, 165. The temple of Janus (or as the Romans called it, Janus, without the word temple,) (cf. Latin text and Livy, l. c., and Horace, Carm, IV, 15, 9,) had been closed first under Numa and again after the first Punic War.
[64] Augustus first closed it in 725, after Actium. Cf. Livy, l. c.; Dio, LI, 20; Vell., II, 38; Victor, De Viris Ill., LXXIX, 6; Plut. De Fort. Rom., 9; Oros., VI, 20, 8. C. I. L. I, p. 384, supplies the day, January 11. In 728 it was opened again, on account of the war with the Cantabri. Cf. Dio, LIII, 26, Plutarch, l. c. A second time it was closed in 729, cf. Dio, l. c.; Oros., VI, 21, 1. The time of its next opening cannot be determined; but in all probability it was reopened that very year, on account of the Arabian campaign. Dio, LIV, 36, records that in 744 the Senate decreed that it should be closed, but that a Dacian rebellion interfered. But Dio must be mistaken, for Drusus was then in the midst of his German campaign. But after the campaigns of Drusus and Tiberius in Germany, closed in 746, up to 753, when Gaius Cæsar started for Armenia, the temple might well have been closed. Parts of Dio are lost here, which may have mentioned such closing. The birth of Jesus Christ, 749, falls in this period of peace. Cf. Milton’s Nativity Hymn. When it was opened for the third time cannot be said. Tacitus says it was opened when Augustus was an old man. But it can hardly have remained shut after the opening of the Armenian war in 753. Augustus was then sixty-two years old. That age may possibly suit the expression of Tacitus. Horace Ep., II, 1, 255, and Carm., IV, 15, 9, mentions the closing of the temple. Suetonius, Aug. 22, says: “Janus Quirinus, which had been shut twice only, from the era of the building of the city to his own time, he closed thrice in a much shorter period, having established universal peace both by sea and land.” This is almost a literal transcript of the Res Gestæ.
[65] Gaius and Lucius, the sons of Agrippa and Julia, the daughter of Augustus, were born, the one in 734 (Dio, LIV, 8), the other in 737 (Dio, LIV, 18) and were adopted by their grandfather immediately after the birth of the latter. Dio, LIV, 18, says: “Lucius and his brother Gaius, Augustus at once adopted and made heirs of the empire, without waiting till they grew to manhood, in order that he might be the more secure against conspiracies.” The will of Augustus (Suet. Tib. 23), speaks much as this chapter does of the death of the two Cæsars: “Since harsh fortune has snatched from me my sons, Gaius and Lucius, let Tiberius Cæsar be heir to two-thirds of my estate.” Suetonius, Aug. 26, says that Augustus took his twelfth and thirteenth consulships, for the purpose of introducing these two boys into the forum.
[66] Dio, LV, 9, under the year 748 writes that these lads were wild and insolent and that the younger, then eleven years old, actually proposed to the people to make Gaius consul. Augustus appeared very angry at this, saying it would be a public calamity for the consulship to be borne by one of less age than that at which he himself had assumed it, viz., twenty. Gaius was, however, designated consul in 749, and Lucius in 752. Cf. Tac. Ann. I, 3; a coin of Rome has on one side: Cæsar Augustus, divi. f., pater patriæ; on the other: C. L. Cæsares, Augusti f., cos. desig., princ. juvent. (Eckhel VI, 171). This must have been struck between Feb. 5, 752, when Augustus received the title pater patriæ, and January 1, 754, when Gaius entered upon his actual consulship. Cf. C. I. L. III, n. 323, and VI, 900.
Lucius died, Aug. 20, 755, and so did not reach the consulship to which he had been elected. Gaius died in 757. Cf. Dio, LV, II; C. I. L. I. p. 472.