26. I extended the frontiers of all the provinces of the Roman people, which were bordered by tribes that had not submitted to our Empire. The provinces of the Gauls, and Spains and Germany, bounded by the Ocean from Gades to the mouth of the river Elbe, I reduced to a peaceful state. The Alps, from the district near the Adriatic to the Tuscan sea, I forced to remain peaceful without waging unprovoked war with any tribe. My fleet sailed through the Ocean from the mouth of the Rhine towards the rising sun, up to the territories of the Cimbri, to which point no Roman had penetrated, up to that time, either by land or sea. The Cimbri, and Charydes, and Semnones and other peoples of the Germans, belonging to the same tract of country, sent ambassadors to ask for the friendship of myself and the Roman people. By my command and under my auspices, two armies were marched into Æthiopia and Arabia, called Felix, nearly simultaneously, and large hostile forces of both these nations were cut to pieces in battle, and a large number of towns were captured. Æthiopia was penetrated as far as the town Nabata, next to Meroe. Into Arabia the army advanced into the territories of the Sabæi as far as the town Mariba.
27. I added Egypt to the Empire of the Roman people. When I might have made the Greater Armenia a province after the assassination of its king Artaxes, I preferred, on the precedent of our ancestors, to hand over that kingdom to Tigranes, son of King Artavasdes, grandson of King Tigranes, by the hands of Tiberius Nero, who was then my stepson. The same nation being afterwards in a state of revolt and rebellion, I handed over to the government of King Ariobarzanes, son of Artabazus, king of the Medes, after it had been reduced by my son Gaius; and after his death to his son Artavasdes, upon whose assassination I sent Tigranes, a member of the royal family of the Armenians, into that kingdom. I recovered all the provinces on the other side of the Adriatic towards the East and Cyrenæ, which were by this time for the most part held by various kings, and before them Sicily and Sardinia which had been overrun by an army of slaves.
28. I settled colonies of soldiers in Africa, Sicily, Macedonia, both the Spains, Achaia, Asia, Syria, Gallia Narbonensis, Pisidia. Italy has twenty-eight colonies established under my auspices, which have in my lifetime become very densely inhabited and places of great resort.
29. A large number of military standards, which had been lost under other commanders, I recovered, after defeating the enemy, from Spain and Gaul and the Dalmatians. I compelled the Parthians to restore the spoils and standards of three Roman armies, and to seek as suppliants the friendship of the Roman people. These standards I laid up in the inner shrine belonging to the temple of Mars Ultor.
30. The tribes of the Pannonii, which before I was princeps an army of the Roman people never reached, having been subdued by Tiberius Nero, who was then my stepson and legate [B.C. 11], I added to the Empire of the Roman people, and I extended the frontier of Illyricum to the bank of the river Danube. And when an army of the Daci crossed to the south of that river it was conquered and put to flight under my auspices; and subsequently my army, being led across the Danube, forced the tribes of the Daci to submit to the orders of the Roman people.
31. To me there were often sent embassies of kings from India, who had never before been seen in the camp of any Roman general. By embassadors the Bastarnæ and the Scythians and the kings of the Sarmatians, who live on both sides of the river Don, and the king of the Albani and of the Hiberi and of the Medes, sought our friendship.
32. Kings of the Parthians—Tiridates, and afterwards Phrates, son of King Phrates—fled to me for refuge; of the Medes Artavasdes; of the Adiabeni Artaxares; of the Britons Dumnobellaunus and Tim ...;[324] of the Marcomanni and Suebi....[324] Phrates, king of the Parthians, son of Orodes, sent all his sons and grandsons to me in Italy, not because he had been overcome in war, but seeking our friendship by means of his own sons as pledges. And a very large number of other nations experienced the good faith of the Roman people while I was princeps, with whom before that time there had been no diplomatic or friendly intercourse.
33. The nations of the Parthians and the chief men of the Medes by means of embassies sought and accepted from me kings of those peoples—the Parthians Vonones, son of King Phrates, grandson of King Orodes; the Medes Ariobarzanes, son of King Artavasdes, grandson of King Ariobarzanes.
34. In my sixth and seventh consulships [B.C. 28, 27], when I had extinguished the flames of civil war, having by universal consent become possessed of the sole direction of affairs, I transferred the republic from my power to the will of the Senate and people of Rome. For which good service on my part I was by decree of the Senate called by the name of Augustus, and the door-posts of my house were covered with laurels in the name of the state, and a civic crown was fixed up over my door, and a golden shield was placed in the Curia Iulia, which it was declared by its inscription the Senate and people of Rome gave me in recognition of valour, clemency, justice, piety. After that time I took precedence of all in rank, but of power I had nothing more than those who were my colleagues in the several magistracies.