Christian antiquities -- Italy -- Rome; Rome (Italy) -- Antiquities
The Ancyran temple owes its preservation to the Christians, who made
use of it as a church from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries, and
also to the Turks, who have turned it into a mosque associated with
the Hadji Beiram. The temple and its invaluable epigraphic treasures
became known towards the middle of the sixteenth century. In 1555 an
embassy was sent by the emperor Ferdinand II. to Suleiman, the khalif,
who was then residing at Amasia.[96] It so happened that the head of
the mission, Ogier Ghislain Busbecq, and his assistant, Antony Wrantz,
bishop of Agram, were fond of archæological investigation. They were
struck by the importance of the Augusteum at Ancyra; and with the
help of their secretaries, they made a tolerably good copy of its
inscriptions. Since 1555 the place has been visited many times,
notably by Edmond Guillaume, in 1861, and by Humann, in 1882.[97]
There are two copies of the will of Augustus engraved on the marble
wall of the temple: one in Latin, which is in the pronaos, on either
side of the door; the other in Greek, on the outer wall of the cella.
Both were transcribed (or translated) "from the original, engraved on
the bronze pillars at the mausoleum in Rome." The document is divided
into three parts, and thirty-five paragraphs. The first part describes
the honors conferred on Augustus,--military, civil, and sacerdotal;
the second gives the details of the expenses which he sustained for
the benefit and welfare of the public; the third relates his
achievements in peace and war; and some of the facts narrated are
truly remarkable. He says, for instance, that the Roman citizens who
fought under his orders and swore allegiance to him numbered five
hundred thousand, and that more than three hundred thousand completed
the term of their engagement, and were honorably dismissed from the
army. To each of these he gave either a piece of land, which he bought
with his own money, or the means of purchasing it in other lands than
those assigned to military colonies. Since, at the time of his death,
one hundred and sixty thousand Roman citizens were still serving under
the flag, the number of those killed in battle, disabled by disease,
or dismissed for misconduct, in the course of fifty-five years[98] is
reduced to forty thousand. The percentage is surprisingly low,
considering the defective organization of the military medical staff,
and the length and hardships of the campaigns which were conducted in
Italy (Mutina), Macedonia (Philippi), Acarnania (Actium), Sicily,
Egypt, Spain, Germany, Armenia and other countries. The number of
men-of-war of large tonnage, which were captured, burnt, or sunk in
battle, is stated at six hundred. In the naval engagement against
Sextus Pompeius, off Naulochos, he sank twenty-eight vessels, and
captured or burnt two hundred and fifty-five; so that only seventeen
out of a powerful fleet of three hundred could make their escape.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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