" On the funeral
day the soldiers under arms kept guard; a mighty mockery this to those who
had either seen, or heard their fathers describe, the day when Caesar the
Dictator was slain: servitude was then new, its sorrows yet fresh and
bitter; and liberty unsuccessfully retrieved by a deed which, while it
seemed impious to some, was thought altogether glorious by others, and
hence tore Rome into tumults and the violence of parties: they who knew
that turbulent day, and compared it with the quiet exit of Augustus,
ridiculed the foppery of "calling an aid of soldiers to secure a peaceable
burial to a Prince who had grown old in peace and power, and even provided
against a relapse into liberty, by a long train of successors."
Hence much and various matter of observation concerning Augustus: the
superstitious multitude admired the fortuitous events of his fortune;
"that the last day of his life, and the first of his reign, was the same;
that he died at Nola, in the same village, and in the same house, and in
the same chamber, where his father Octavius died. They observed to his
glory, his many Consulships, equal in number to those of Valerius Corvinus
and of Caius Marius, joined together; that he had exercised the power of
the Tribuneship seven-and-thirty continued years: that he was one-and-
twenty times proclaimed Imperator; with many other numerous honours
repeated to him, or created for him.
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