A festival extraordinary was conducted by the dancers and horse-breeders. The Feast of Mars, because the Tiber had previously occupied the hipprodrome, was this time held in the forum of Augustus and honored by a kind of horse-race and by the slaughter of wild beasts. It was celebrated a second time, as custom decreed, and Germanicus on that occasion killed two hundred lions in the hippodrome. The so-called portico of Julia was built in honor of Gaius and Lucius, the Cæsars, and was at that time dedicated. [A.D. 13 (_a. u._ 766)] [-28-] When Lucius Munatius and Gaius Silius had been registered as consuls Augustus reluctantly accepted the fifth decennial presidency of the State and gave Tiberius again the tribunician authority. To Drusus, the latter's son, he granted permission to stand for the consulship a third year, still without having held the prætorship; and for himself he asked twenty annual counselors because of his old age, which did not permit him to visit the senate any longer save rarely. Previously fifteen were attached to him for six months. It was further voted that any measure should have authority, as satisfactory to the whole senate, which should after deliberation be resolved upon by him in conjunction with Tiberius and with the consuls of the year, with the men appointed for deliberation and his grandchildren (the adopted ones, of course) and the others that he might on any occasion call upon for advice. Gaining by the decree those powers (which in reality he had in any case) he transacted most of the is necessary business, though sometimes lying down. Now as nearly all felt oppressed by the five per cent tax and a political convulsion seemed likely, he sent document to the senate bidding its members seek some other means of income. This he did not in the intention of abolishing the tax but in order that when no other appeared to them preferable they might though reluctantly ratify it without declaiming against him He also ordered Germanicus and Drusus not to make any official statement about it, for fear that if they expressed an opinion persons would suspect that this had been done by his orders and choose that plan without further investigation. There was much discussion and some schemes were submitted to Augustus in writing. When he found by them that the senators were ready to endure any form of tax rather than that in force, he changed it to a levy upon fields and houses. And without telling how great it would be or in what way imposed, he immediately sent men in different directions to make a list of the possessions both of individuals and of towns. His object was that they should fear losses on a large scale and so be content to pay the five per cent. This actually happened, and so it was that Augustus settled the difficulty.