Among the many excellent utterances of hers that are related is one concerned with the occasion when some men that were naked met her and on that account fell under sentence of execution; she saved their lives by saying that to chaste women such persons were no whit different from statues. When some one asked her how and by what course of action she had obtained such an influence over Augustus, she answered that it was by being scrupulously chaste herself, doing willingly whatever pleased him, not meddling with any of his business, and particularly by pretending neither to hear of nor notice the favorites that were the objects of his passion. Such was the character of Livia. The arch voted to her, however, was not built for the reason that Tiberius promised to construct it at his own expense. For, as he disliked to annul the decree by direct command, he made it void in this way, by not allowing the work to be undertaken out of the public funds nor attending to it himself. [A.D. 29 or 30] Sejanus was rising to still greater heights. It was voted that his birthday should be publicly observed, and the mass of statues which the senate and the equestrian order, the tribes and the foremost citizens set up, would have passed any one's power to count. Separate envoys were sent to both these "rulers" by the senate as well as the knights and also by the people, who selected them from their own tribunes and aediles. For both of them alike they offered prayers and sacrifices and they took oaths by their Fortunes. [A.D. 30 (a. u. 783)]