The dictatorship which was offered to me by the people and the senate, both when I was absent and when I was present, in the consulship of Marcus Marcellus and Lucius Arruntius, I did not accept.[32] At a time of the greatest dearth of grain I did not refuse the charge of the food supply, which I so administered that in a few days, at my own expense, I freed the whole people from the anxiety and danger in which they then were.[33] The annual and perpetual consulship offered to me at that time I did not accept.[34]
c. 6.
During the consulship of Marcus Vinucius and Quintus Lucretius, and afterwards in that of Publius and Cnaeus Lentulus, and a third time in that of Paullus Fabius Maximus and Quintus Tubero, by the consent of the senate and the Roman people I was voted the sole charge of the laws and of morals, with the fullest power;[35] but I accepted the proffer of no office which was contrary to the customs of the country.[36] The measures of which the senate at that time wished me to take charge, I accomplished in virtue of my possession of the tribunitial power.[37] In this office I five times associated with myself a colleague, with the consent of the senate.[38]
c. 7.
For ten years in succession I was one of the triumvirs for organizing the commonwealth.[39] Up to that day on which I write these words I have been princeps of the senate through forty years.[40] I have been pontifex maximus,[41] augur,[42] a member of the quindecemviral college of the sacred rites,[43] of the septemviral college of the banquets,[44] an Arval Brother,[45] a member of the Titian sodality,[46] and a fetial.[47]
c. 8.
In my fifth consulship, by order of the people and the senate, I increased the number of the patricians.[48] Three times I have revised the list of the senate.[49] In my sixth consulship, with Marcus Agrippa as colleague, I made a census of the people. I performed the lustration after forty-one years. In this lustration the number of Roman citizens was four million and sixty-three thousand.[50] Again assuming the consular power in the consulship of Gaius Censorinus and Gaius Asinius, I alone performed the lustration. At this census the number of Roman citizens was four million, two hundred and thirty thousand.[51] A third time, assuming the consular power in the consulship of Sextus Pompeius and Sextus Appuleius, with Tiberius Cæsar as colleague, I performed the lustration. At this lustration the number of Roman citizens was four million, nine hundred and thirty-seven thousand.[52] By new legislation I have restored many customs of our ancestors which had now begun to fall into disuse, and I have myself also committed to posterity many examples worthy of imitation.[53]
c. 9.
The senate decreed that every fifth year vows for my good health should be performed by the consuls and the priests. In accordance with these vows games have been often celebrated during my lifetime, sometimes by the four chief colleges, sometimes by the consuls.[54] In private, also, and as municipalities, the whole body of citizens have constantly sacrificed at every shrine for my good health.[55]