I gave the people the spectacle of a naval battle beyond the Tiber, where now is the grove of the Cæsars.[115] For this purpose an excavation was made eighteen hundred feet long and twelve hundred wide. In this contest thirty beaked ships, triremes or biremes, were engaged, besides more of smaller size. About three thousand men fought in these vessels in addition to the rowers. c. 24. In the temples of all the cities of the province of Asia, I, as victor, replaced the ornaments of which he with whom I was at war had taken private possession when he despoiled the temples.[116] Silver statues of me, on foot, on horseback and in quadrigas, which stood in the city to the number of about eighty, I removed, and out of their money value, I placed golden gifts in the temple of Apollo in my own name, and in the names of those who had offered me the honor of the statues.[117] c. 25. I have freed the sea from pirates. In that war with the slaves I delivered to their masters for punishment about thirty thousand slaves who had fled from their masters and taken up arms against the state.[118] The whole of Italy voluntarily took the oath of allegiance to me, and demanded me as leader in that war in which I conquered at Actium. The provinces of Gaul, Spain, Africa, Sicily and Sardinia swore the same allegiance to me.[119] There were more than seven hundred senators who at that time fought under my standards, and among these, up to the day on which these words are written, eighty-three have either before or since been made consuls, and about one hundred and seventy have been made priests.[120] c. 26. I have extended the boundaries of all the provinces of the Roman people which were bordered by nations not yet subjected to our sway.[121] I have reduced to a state of peace the Gallic and Spanish provinces, and Germany, the lands enclosed by the ocean from Gades to the mouth of the Elbe.[122] The Alps from the region nearest the Adriatic as far as the Tuscan Sea I have brought into a state of peace, without waging an unjust war upon any people.[123] My fleet has navigated the ocean from the mouth of the Rhine as far as the boundaries of the Cimbri, where before that time no Roman had ever penetrated by land or sea;[124] and the Cimbri and Charydes and Semnones and other German peoples of that section, by means of legates, sought my friendship and that of the Roman people.[125] By my command and under my auspices two armies at almost the same time have been led into Ethiopia and into Arabia, which is called “the Happy,” and very many of the enemy of both peoples have fallen in battle, and many towns have been captured. Into Ethiopia the advance was as far as Nabata, which is next to Meroe.[126] In Arabia the army penetrated as far as the confines of the Sabaei, to the town Mariba.[127] c. 27.