The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Volume 02: AugustusSuetonius
History
The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Volume 02: Augustus
Suetonius
Emperors -- Rome -- Biography -- Early works to 1800; Rome -- History -- Empire, 30 B.C.-284 A.D.
C. He expired in the same room in which his father Octavius had died,
when the two Sextus's, Pompey and Apuleius, were consuls, upon the
fourteenth of the calends of September [the 19th August], at the ninth
hour of the day, being seventy-six years of age, wanting only thirty-five
days [258]. His remains were carried by the magistrates of the municipal
[259] towns and colonies, from Nola to Bovillae [260], and in the
nighttime, because of the season of the year. During the intervals, the
body lay in some basilica, or great temple, of each town. At Bovillae it
was met by the Equestrian Order, who carried it to the city, and
deposited it in the vestibule of his own house. The senate proceeded
with so much zeal in the arrangement of his funeral, and paying honour to
his memory, that, amongst several other proposals, some were for having
the funeral procession made through the triumphal gate, preceded by the
image of Victory which is in the senate-house, and the children of
highest rank and of both sexes singing the funeral (146) dirge. Others
proposed, that on the day of the funeral, they should lay aside their
gold rings, and wear rings of iron; and others, that his bones should be
collected by the priests of the principal colleges. One likewise
proposed to transfer the name of August to September, because he was born
in the latter, but died in the former. Another moved, that the whole
period of time, from his birth to his death, should be called the
Augustan age, and be inserted in the calendar under that title. But at
last it was judged proper to be moderate in the honours paid to his
memory. Two funeral orations were pronounced in his praise, one before
the temple of Julius, by Tiberius; and the other before the rostra, under
the old shops, by Drusus, Tiberius's son. The body was then carried upon
the shoulders of senators into the Campus Martius, and there burnt. A
man of pretorian rank affirmed upon oath, that he saw his spirit ascend
from the funeral pile to heaven. The most distinguished persons of the
equestrian order, bare-footed, and with their tunics loose, gathered up
his relics [261], and deposited them in the mausoleum, which had been
built in his sixth consulship between the Flaminian Way and the bank of
the Tiber [262]; at which time likewise he gave the groves and walks
about it for the use of the people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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