Now, if we take into account the above injury alone, can any one justly pronounce that man happy, whose life was thus endangered by the caprice of an enemy, and that enemy, besides, not an Africanus? What victories over enemies could possibly be counterbalanced by such a price as this? What honours, what triumphs, did not Fortune cancel, in suffering a censor to be dragged through the middle of the city—indeed, that was his only resource for gaining time[1224]—dragged to that Capitol, whither he himself, in his triumph, had forborne to drag in a similar manner even the very captives whom he had taken in his conquests? This crime, too, must be looked upon as all the greater, from its having so nearly deprived Macedonicus of the honours of his funeral, so great and so glorious, in which he was borne to the pile by his triumphant children, he himself thus triumphing, as it were, in his very obsequies. Most assuredly, there is no happiness that can be called unalloyed, when the terror of our life has been interrupted by any outrage, and much more by such an outrage as this. As for the rest, I really am at a loss whether we ought most to commend the manners of the age,[1225] or to feel an increased degree of indignation, that, among so many members of the family of the Metelli, such wicked audacity as that of C. Atinius remained unpunished. CHAP. 46.—THE MISFORTUNES OF AUGUSTUS. In the life of the now deified emperor Augustus even, whom the whole world would certainly agree to place in this class,[1226] if we carefully examine it in all its features, we shall find remarkable vicissitudes of human fate. There was his rejection from the post of master of the horse, by his uncle,[1227] and the preference which was given to Lepidus, and that, too, in opposition to his own requests; the hatred produced by the proscription; his alliance in the Triumvirate[1228] with some among the very worst of the citizens, and that, too, with an unequal share of influence, he himself being entirely borne down by the power of Antony; his illness[1229] at the battle of Philippi; his flight, and his having to remain three days concealed in a marsh,[1230] though suffering from sickness, and, according to the account of Agrippa and Mecænas, labouring under a dropsy; his shipwreck[1231] on the coast of Sicily, where he was again under the necessity of concealing himself in a cave; his desperation, which caused him even to beg Proculeius[1232] to put him to death, when he was hard-pressed by the enemy in a naval engagement;[1233] his alarm about the rising at Perusia;[1234] his anxiety at the battle of Actium;[1235] the extreme danger he was in from the falling of a tower during the Pannonian war;[1236] seditions so numerous among his soldiers; so many attacks by dangerous diseases;[1237] the suspicions which he entertained respecting the intentions of Marcellus;[1238] the disgraceful banishment, as it were, of Agrippa;[1239] the many