[-19-] Meanwhile, and still earlier, the Romans at home had passed many resolutions respecting the victory at sea. They granted Caesar a triumph (over Cleopatra) and granted him an arch bearing a trophy at Brundusium, and another one in the Roman Forum. Moreover, the lower part of the Julian hero-shrine was to be adorned with the beaks of the captive ships and a festival every five years to be celebrated in his honor. There should be a thanksgiving on his birthday and on the anniversary of the announcement of the victory: when he entered the city the (vestal virgin) priestesses, the senate and the people, with their wives and children, were to meet him. It is quite superfluous to mention the prayers, the images, the privileges of front seats, and everything else of the sort. At the very first they both voted him these honors, and either tore down or erased the memorials that had lent Antony distinction. They declared the day on which the latter had been born accursed and forbade the employment of the surname Marcus by any one of his kin. His death was announced during a part of the year when Cicero, the son of Cicero, was consul; and on ascertaining this some believed it had come to pass not without divine direction, since the consul's father had owed his death chiefly to Antony. Then they voted to Caesar additional crowns and many thanksgivings, and granted him among other rights authority to conduct a triumph over the Egyptians also. For neither previously nor at that time did they mention by name Antony and the rest of the Romans who had been vanquished with him, and so imply that it was proper to hold a celebration over them. The day on which Alexandria was captured they declared fortunate and directed that for the years to come it should be taken as the starting-point of enumeration by the inhabitants of that town.[72] Also Caesar was to hold the tribunician power for life, to have the right to defend such as called upon him for help both within the pomerium and outside to the distance of eight half-stadia (a privilege possessed by none of the tribunes), as also to judge appealed cases; and a vote of his, like the vote of Athena,[73] was to be cast in all the courts. In the prayers in behalf of the people and the senate petitions should be offered for him alike by the priests and by the priestesses. They also ordered that at all banquets, not only public but private also, all should pour a libation to him. These were the resolutions passed at that time. [B.C. 29 (_a. u._ 725)]