The Historians' History of the World 06

After which, having dismissed them all, whilst he was inquiring of some that were just come from Rome, concerning Drusus’ daughter who was in a bad state of health, he expired amidst the kisses of Livia, and with these words: “Livia, live mindful of our marriage, and farewell!” dying a very easy death, and such as he himself had always wished for. For as often as he heard that any person had died quickly and without pain, he wished for himself and his friends the like ευθανασια (an easy death), for that was the word he made use of. He discovered but one symptom before his death of his being delirious, which was this: he was all on a sudden much frightened, and complained that he was carried away by forty men. But this was rather a presage, than any delirium; for precisely that number of soldiers carried out his corpse.

He expired [Suetonius continues] in the same room in which his father Octavius had died, when the two Sextuses, Pompeius and Apuleius, were consuls, upon the fourteenth of the calends of September [Aug. 19 A.D., 14 according to the revised calendar], at the ninth hour of the day, wanting only five-and-thirty days of seventy-six years of age. His remains were carried by the magistrates of the municipia[6] and colonies, from Nola to Bovillæ, and in the night time because of the season of the year. During the intervals, the body lay in some court, or great temple, of each town. At Bovillæ it was met by the equestrian order who carried it to the city, and deposited it in the porch 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 the first quality, of both sexes, singing the funeral ditty. Others moved 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 superior orders. One likewise proposed to transfer the name of Augustus 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 to be 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’ son. The body was then carried upon the shoulders of senators into the Field of Mars, and there burned. A man of prætorian rank affirmed upon oath that he saw his spirit ascend into heaven. The most distinguished persons of the equestrian order, bare-footed, and with their tunics loose, gathered up his relics, and deposited them in the mausoleum, which had been built in his sixth consulship, betwixt the Flaminian way and the bank of the Tiber, at which time likewise he gave the woods and walks about it for the use of the people.

He had made a will a year and four months before his death, upon the third of the nones of April, in the consulship of Lucius Plancus and C. Silius. It consisted of two skins of parchment, written partly in his hand, and partly by his freedmen Polybius and Hilarion. It had been committed to the custody of the vestal virgins, by whom it was now produced, with three other volumes, all sealed up as well as the will, which were every one read in the senate. He appointed for his first heirs, Tiberius for two thirds of his estate, and Livia for the other third, whom he likewise desired to assume his name. The heirs substituted in their room, in case of death, were Drusus, Tiberius’ son, for a third part, and Germanicus with his three sons for the rest. Next to them were his relations and several of his friends.

He left in legacies to the Roman people 40,000,000 sesterces; to the tribes 3,500,000; to the guards 1000 each man; to the city battalions 500; and to the soldiers in the legions 300 each; which several sums he ordered to be paid immediately after his death. For he had taken care that the money should be ready in his exchequer. For the rest he ordered different times of payment. In some of his bequests he went as far as 20,000 sesterces, for the payment of which he allowed a twelvemonth; alleging for this procrastination the scantiness of his estate; and declaring that not more than 150,000,000 sesterces would come to his heirs: notwithstanding that during the twenty preceding years, he had received in legacies from his friends, the sum of 1,400,000,000; almost the whole of which, with his two paternal estates, and others that had been left him, he expended upon the public.