[99] The original temple was burned in 756. Cf. Val. Max. I, 8, 11; Dio, LV, 12; Suet. Aug. 57.
[100] The Capitol means the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.
[101] Frontinus, De Aq. c. 125, speaks of a decree of the Senate in the year 743 “concerning the putting in order of the streams, conduits and arches of the Julian, Marcian, Appian, Tepulan and Aniene waters, which Augustus has promised the Senate that he will repair at his own expense.” Aqueducts were repaired in 749-750. Cf. C. I. L. VI, 1244. C. I. L. VI, 1249, gives Iul. Tep. Mar.; imp. Cæsar divi f. Augustus ex s. c.; XXV; ped. CCXL. C. I. L. VI, 1243, records the repairs of the Marcian aqueduct. Frontinus, op. cit., 12, gives some details of the doubled supply of this source, and says the new spring had to be conducted eight hundred feet to join the older fountain.
[102] Julius Cæsar dedicated this forum Sept. 24 or 25, 708. Cf. Dio, XLIII, 22; App. B. C., III, 28; C. I. L. I, p. 402 and 397. Pliny, Hist. Nat., XXXV, 12, 156, mentions its completion by Augustus.
Augustus uses the word profligata here for “unfinished,” a use which was common enough but not elegant, and is severely criticised by Gellius, XV, 5. The word really means wretched rather than unfinished. That Augustus was not a purist this inscription testifies, and Suetonius also tells us, Aug., 87 and 88, how peculiar he was in diction and orthography.
The basilica which was unfinished at the death of Augustus he refrains from naming while it was not yet dedicated. But we know from Suetonius, Aug. 29, and Dio, LVI, 27, that it was built in honor of his grandchildren, Gaius and Lucius.
[103] There is abundant testimony to this architectural activity. Cf. Suet. Aug. 29 and 30; Dio, LIII, 2; LVI, 40; Livy IV, 20; Ovid, Fasti, II, 59; Hor. Carm., III, 6. Nor was this the zeal of a mere archæologist and architect. The emperor was anxious for a revival of religious observance, as a conservative force in his new organization of the state.
[104] It is remarkable that Augustus should say he “constructed” the Flaminian Way, etc., for it was made nearly two hundred years before this date, 727. Moreover, the whole chapter is given up to an account of reconstructions, and of course it is meant that he repaired the road and the bridges in question. The Latin verb is wanting and is restored from the Greek, ἐπόησα, which is unmistakable,—“I made.” Mommsen does not comment on the incorrectness of this statement, but Wölfflin regards the Greek verb as a blunder of the stone-cutter at Ancyra, and thinks there was no verb at all at the end of this chapter, but that the mason by mistake took the last word of the preceding chapter which is ἐπόησα. A substitution of ἐπόησα for the proper verb seems more likely, as it seems improbable that the sentence would end without a verb.
These repairs are attested by an inscription on an arch at Ariminum, thus restored by Bormann: Cf. C. I. L. XI, 365.
SENATUS POPULUSQ ue romanus