plots against his life;[1240] the deaths of his own children,[1241] of which he was accused, and his heavy sorrows, caused not merely by their loss;[1242] the adultery[1243] of his daughter, and the discovery of her parricidal designs; the insulting retreat of his son-in-law, Nero;[1244] another adultery, that of his grand-daughter;[1245] to which there were added numerous other evils, such as the want of money to pay his soldiers; the revolt of Illyria;[1246] the necessity of levying the slaves; the sad deficiency of young men;[1247] the pestilence that raged in the City;[1248] the famine in Italy; the design which he had formed of putting an end to his life, and the fast of four days, which brought him within a hair’s breadth of death. And then, added to all this, the slaughter of Varus;[1249] the base slanders[1250] whispered against his authority; the rejection of Posthumius Agrippa, after his adoption,[1251] and the regret to which Augustus was a prey after his banishment;[1252] the suspicions too respecting Fabius, to the effect that he had betrayed his secrets; and then, last of all, the machinations of his wife and of Tiberius, the thoughts of which occupied his last moments. In fine, this same god,[1253] who was raised to heaven, I am at a loss to say whether deservedly or not, died, leaving the son of his own enemy his heir.[1254] CHAP. 47. (46.)—MEN WHOM THE GODS HAVE PRONOUNCED TO BE THE MOST HAPPY. In reference to this point, two oracles of Delphi may come under our consideration, which would appear to have been pronounced as though in order to chastise the vanity of man. These oracles were the following: by the first, Pedius was pronounced to be the most happy of men, who had just before fallen in defence of his country.[1255] On the second occasion, when it had been consulted by Gyges, at that time the most powerful king in the world, it declared that Aglaüs of Psophis[1256] was a more happy man than himself.[1257] This Aglaüs was an old man, who lived in a poor petty nook of Arcadia, and cultivated a small farm, though quite sufficient for the supply of his yearly wants;[1258] he had never so much as left it, and, as was quite evident from his mode of living, his desires being of the most limited kind, he had experienced but an extremely small share of the miseries of life. CHAP. 48. (47.)—THE MAN WHOM THE GODS ORDERED TO BE WORSHIPPED DURING HIS LIFE-TIME; A REMARKABLE FLASH OF LIGHTNING.