A copy of the account of the deeds of the divine Augustus, by which he subjected the earth to the imperium of the Roman people, and of the expenses that he incurred on behalf of the Roman peo ple, inscribed on two bronze tablets that are erected at Rome.
1.1: At the age of nineteen I raised an army on my own initiative and at my own expense, with which I liberated the Republic, oppressed at that time by the domination of a faction. (2) For this reason the senate, passing honorific decrees on my behalf, adlected me into its own order in the consulship of Gaius Pansa and Aulus Hirtius, allowing me to give my opinion with the consulars, and it gave me imperium. (3) The senate ordered me, as propraetor, at the same time as it ordered the consuls, to see to it that no harm should come to the Republic. (4) The people, however, in the same year, made me consul, after both consuls had died in battle, and then made me triumvir for the restoration of the Republic.
2. As for those who murdered my father, I drove them into exile and avenged their crime through legitimate tribunals, and I defeated them twice in battle when they afterwards made war on the Republic.
3.1: I often waged civil and foreign wars throughout the entire world, and, as victor, I granted mercy to all citizens who asked for it. (2) I preferred to preserve rather than annihilate foreign nations tha t it was possible to forgive safely. (3) Around 500,000 Roman citizens served under oath to me. I settled in colonies or returned to their municipalities somewhat more than 300,000 o f these men when their term of service expired, and I assigned each of them land, or gave them money, as a reward for their military service. (4) I captured 600 ships larger that were triremes or larger.
4.1: I celebrated two ovations, and three curele triumphs. I was hailed imperator 21 times, and the senate voted so many triumphs to me that I would have surpassed all my predecessor s. I deposited the laurel from my fasces in the temple of Capitoline Jupiter, and I also paid the vows which I had made in wartime. (2) The senate decreed 550 days of thanksgiving to the gods on account of my accomplishments by lan d and sea, or the accomplishments of my legates serving under my auspicies. The actual number of days upon which thanksgivings were celebrated by decree of the senate came to 990. (3) Nine kings or children of kings were led before my chariot in triumphs. (4) I was consul 19 times, when I wrote this, and I held tribunician power for 37 years.
5.1: I turned down the dictatorship that was offered to me, both while I was in the city, and outside of it, by the senate and people in the consulship of Marcus Marcellus and Lucius Arruntius. (2) I did not turn down care of the grain supply when there was a serious shortage, and I administered the office in such a way that I freed the whole state from fear and danger within a few days, at my own expense, and through my care. (3) I turned down the consulshi p for life that was also offered to me in that year.
6.1: When the senate and people agreed in the consulship of Marcus Vinicius and Quintus Lucretius, and again in the consulship of Publius Lentulus and Gnaeus Lentulus, and for a third time in the consulship of Paullus Fabius Maximus and Quintus Tubero that I be made curator of laws and habits with the highest power, I received no office that was offered contrary to the custom of our ancestors. (2) I did what t he senate wished me to do on those occasions, and I acted through the tribunician power ; I myself asked for and received a colleague in that power from the senate five times.
7.1: I was triumvir for the restoration of the Republic for ten consecutive years. (2) I have been princeps of the senate up to the point at which I have written this for forty years. (3) I have been pontifex maximus, augur, member of the board of fifteen for overseeing sacrifices, member of the board of seven for arranging sacred banquets, frater arvalis, sodalis Titius, and fetialis.
8.1 As consul for the fifth time, I augmented the number of patricians in accordance with the instruction of the people and senate. (2) I reviewed the membership of the senate three times. In my sixth consulship I conducted a census of the people with Marcus Agrippa as my colleague, 42 years after the last census had been conducted. In that census, and four million, sixty-three thousand citizens were registered. (3) I held another c ensus on my own with consular imperium in the consulship of Gaius Censorinus and Gaius Asinius. In that census, four million, two hundred and thirty-three thousand Roman citizens were registered. (4) I conducted a third census wit h consular imperium with my son Tiberius Caesar as my colleague in the consulship of Sextus Pompeius and Sextus Appuleius. In that census, four million, nine hundred and thirty-seven thousand Roman citizens were registered. (5) Through new laws that were carried when I proposed them, I brought back many exemplary practices of our ancestors that had gone out of use in our age, and I passed on many precedents that ought to be imitated by posterity.
9.1 The senate decreed that vows be offered by the consuls and priests for my health every five years. In accordance with those vows, while I lived, either the four great colleges of priests or the consuls often gave games. (2) Privately and publicly, all citizens have unanimously and continuously given thanks for my health at all the couches of the gods.
10.1 My name was included in the carmen saliare by decree of the senate. That I should be sacrosanct for life, and that I should hold the tribunician power as long as I should live was decreed by law. (2) I would not be pontifex maximus in place of my colleague who was still alive, and I refused that priesthood when the people offered it to me because my father had held it. (3) I receiv ed that priesthood several years later in the consulship of Publius Sulpicius and Gaius Valgius, when the person who had occupied the office during time of civil war had died, and on that occasion a multitude from all of Italy pour ed in for my election, more than had ever come before that time.
11.1 The senate consecrated the altar of Fortuna Returned in front of the temple of Honor and Virtue by the porta Capena to celebrate my return, and it ordered the pontifices and the Vestal Virgins to offer sacrifice there every ye ar on the day upon which I returned to the city from Syria in the consulship of Quintus Lucretius and Marcus Vinicius. It called that day the Augustalia after my cognomen.
12.1 In accordance with the will of the senate, some of the praetors and the tribunes of the plebs, together with the consul Gaius Lucretius and the leading citizens were sent to meet me in Campania, an honor that had been decreed for no one except me up to that time. (2) When I returned to Rome from Spain and Gaul, having successfully set the affairs of those provinces in order, in the consulship of Tiberius Nero and Publius Quinctilius the senate decreed that the altar of the pea ce of Augustus should be consecrated in honor of my return on the campus Martius, and it ordered the magistrates, priests and Vestal Virgins to offer an annual sacrifice there.
13.1 The senate decreed that the gateway of Janus Quirinus should be closed three times while I was princeps. Our ancestors wished that it be closed when peace should have been establish ed throughout the empire of the Roman people through victory, and, before I was born, it is only said to have been closed twice since the founding of the city.
14.1 The Roman senate and people, as a way of honoring me, decreed that my sons Gaius and Lucius Caesar, whom fortune took away from when they were young men, should be designated consul when they were fifteen and enter into that o ffice after a quinquennium ; and on that day when they were led down into the Forum for the first time, the senate decreed that they should be admitted to its meetings. (2) the Roman knights, however, unanimo usly named each of them as princeps iuventutis, and awarded them silver spears.
15.1 I handed out 300 HS to each of the Roman plebs in accordance with the will of my father ; and when I was consul for the fifth time, I gave 400 HS in my own name to each of the Rom an plebs from war booty; in my tenth consulship I handed out 400 HS to each of the Roman plebs from my private fortune as a congiarium. As consul for the eleventh time, I made twelve distributions of grain to the Roman people, buying the grain as a private individual. In my twelfth year of tribunician power I gave 400 HS to each of the Roman plebs. My congiaria were never distributed to fewer that 250,000 people. (2) In the twenty-second year of my tribunician power, when I was consul for the twelfth time, I distributed I gave 60 denarii apiece to 320,000 of the urban plebs. (3) When I was consul for the fifth time I distributed 1,000 nummi to each man in the colonies of my veterans from war booty; about 120,000 men accepted that triumphal congiarium. (4) When I was con sul for the thirteenth time, I gave 60 denarii to the plebs who received public grain; there were a few more than 200,000 of them.
16.1: I paid money to the municipalities for the lands that I assigned to the soldiers in my fourth consulship, and afterwards in the consulship of Marcus Crassus and Gnaeus Lentulus the augur. The total th at I paid for lands in Italy was about 600,000,000 HS, and around 260,000,000 for lands in the provinces. Of those who founded military colonies in Italy or in the provinces, I was the first and only person to do this in the memor y of my contemporaries. (2) Afterwards, in the consulships of Tiberius Nero and Gnaeus Piso, of C. Antistius and Decimus Laelius, of Gaius Calvisius and Lucius Pasienus, of Lucius Lentulus and Marcus Messalla, and of Lucius Caninius an d Quintus Fabricius, I settled soldiers who had completed their terms of service in their own municipalities, and I paid their monetary awards, expending about 400,000,000 HS on this account.
17.1: I aided the aerarium four times with my own money, so that I handed over 150,000,000 HS to the officials in charge of the aerarium. (2) In the consulship of Marcus Lepidus and Luci us Arruntius I paid 170,000,000 HS of my own money into the aerarium militare, which was established on my advice so that retirement bonuses could be paid to soldiers who had served for 20 or more years out of it.
18.1: From the consulship of Cnaeus and Publius Lentulus onwards, whenever revenues from the vectigalia failed, I gave donations of grain or money to 100,000 or more men from my grainery and money.
19.1 I built the curia and the Chalcidium next to it, and the temple of Apollo on the Palatine with its porticoes, the temple of the divine Julius, the lupercal, the portico in the circus Flaminius, which I allowed to be named the Octavia after the person who had first built it up from the ground, the pulvinar in the circus maximus; (2) the temples on the Capitol of Jupiter Feretrius and Jupiter Thunderer, the temple of Quirinus, the temples of Minerva and of Juno the Queen and of Jupiter the Liberator on the Avetine ; the temple of the Lares at the top of of the via sacra, the temple of the Penates in Velia, the temple of Youth and the temple of the Great Mother.
20.1 I repaired the Capitolium and the theater of Pompey at great expense, without adding an inscription in my name. (2) I repaired aqueducts that had collapsed through age in many places, and I doubled the capacity of the aqueduct that is called the aqua Marcia by bringing water from a new spring into it. (3) I completed the forum Julium and the basilica that is between the temple of Castor and the temple o f Saturn, works that had been started and almost completed by my father, and when the same basilica was burnt down, I began to rebuild it on a larger site in the name of my sons, and I ordered that if it should not be finished in my l ifetime, it should be finished by my heirs. (4) When I was consul for the sixth time, acting upon the authority of the senate, I repaired 82 temples of the gods in the city, ommitting none that needed to be repaired at that ti me. (5) As consul for the seventh time I rebuilt the via Flaminia from the city to Ariminium, and all the bridges between the Milvian and the Minucian.
21.1: I built the temple of Mars the Avenger and the forum Augustum on private property from the spoils of war. I built the theater by the temple of Apollo on ground that I bought, in large part, from pri vate sellers, in the name of my son in law Marcellus. (2) I consecrated gifts from the spoils of war in the Capitol and in the shrines of divine Julius, of Apollo, of Vesta, and in the temple of Mars the Avenger, which cost me about 100,000,000 HS. (3) I returned the gold for crowns weighing about 35,000 pounds that were offered to me by the municipalities and colonies of Italy in honor of my triumphs during my fifth consulship ; and afterwards, whenever I was proclaimed imperator, I did not accept the gold for crowns that the municipalities and colonies voted with the same goodwill as before.
22.1: I gave gladiatorial entertainments (munera) three times in my own name and five times in the name of my sons and grandsons. About 10,000 men fought in these entertainments. Twice in my own name, a nd a third time in the name of my grandson, I gave displays of athletes brought from all over the empire to the people. (2) I celebrated four ludi in my own name and another twenty-three on behalf of other magistrates. I celebrat ed the ludi saeculares in the consulship of Gaius Furnius and Gaius Silanus on behalf of the collegium of the quindecimviri with my colleague Marcus Agrippa. When I was consul for the thirteenth time I celebr ated the ludi Martiales for the first time, and in following years the consuls celebrated them in accordance with a decree of the senate and a law passed by the people. (3) I gave twenty-six displays of African beasts in my own name or in the name of my sons and grandsons in the circus, in the forum, or in the amphitheaters for the people in which about 3500 beasts were killed.
23.1: I presented the spectacle of a naval battle to the people across the Tiber, in that place where the grove of the Caesars is located, excavating an area about 1,800 feet long and 1,200 feet wide. In this place thirty trireme s or biremes with rams fought against each other. About 3,000 men fought on the ships in addition to the oarsmen.
24.1: I returned to all the temples of Asia, as a victor, all the ornaments that the person against whom I fought had stolen and possessed as a private citizen. (2) Around eighty silve r statues of me, either standing, or riding a horse or in a four horse chariot were erected in the city, which I took down and, from the money realized from the melting down of these statues I placed golden gifts in the temple of Apollo in my name and in the names of those who had erected the statues in my honor.
25.1: I made the sea safe from pirates. From that war, I handed over about 300,000 slaves, who had escaped from their masters and taken up arms against the Republic, to their masters for punishment. (2) A ll Italy swore an oath to obey my words, of its own free will, and asked for me to be leader in the war that I won at Actium. The provinces of the Gauls, Spains, Africa, Sicily and Sardinia swore that same oath. (3) There were mo re than 700 senators who served under my standards, among whom were, either previously or afterwards—down to the time that these words were written— 83 consuls and around 170 priests.
26.1. I expanded the frontiers of all the provinces of the Roman people where there are neighboring nations that do not obey our imperium. (2) I pacified the Gallic and Spanish provin ces, and I did the same to Germany : I pacified the region from Cadiz to the mouth of the Elbe. (3) I pacified the Alps from that region that is closest to the Adriatic to Tuscany: waging war against no nation for an unjust cause.< /A> (4) My fleet sailed through Ocean from the mouth of the Rhine to the region where the sun rises, even as far as the borders of the Cimbrians, where no Roman had gone before either by land or by sea; an d the Cimbrians and the Semnones and the other German peoples of that region sought my friendship and that of the Roman people through ambassadors. (5) Upon my order and under my auspices two armies were led at about the same time to Ethiopia and that part of Arabia that is called Fortunate, and great forces of both enemy nations were killed in battle and many towns were captured. The city of Nabata was reached in Ethiopia, which is closest to Meroe. In Arabia the army advanced as far as Mariba on the borders of the Sabaeans.
27.1: I added Egypt to the empire of the Roman people. (2) When I might have made Greater Armenia a province after the death of Artaxes, its king, I preferred to follow the practice of our ancestors and to hand the kingdom over to Tigranes son of Artavasdes, grandson of Tigranes through the agency of Tiberius Caesar, who was then my step-son. When that same nation, which had defect ed and rebelled, was conquered by my son Gaius, I handed it over to be ruled by king Ariobarzanes, son of Artavasdes, the king of the Medes, and after his death, to his son Artavasdes. When he (Artavasdes ) was killed, I dispatched Tigranes, who was from the royal line of the Armenians, to rule that kingdom. (3) I recovered all the provinces that face the Adriatic to the west, and Cyrene, when kings were r uling most of that area, as well as Sicily and Sardinia, which had been occupied in the war with the slaves.
28.1: I established military colonies in Africa, Sicily, Macedonia, both Spains, Achaea, Asia, Syria, Narbonensian Gaul, and Pisidia. (2) Italy has twenty-eight colonies, founded upon my authority, which, while I live, are famous and populous.
29.1: I recovered many military standards lost by other generals from conquered peoples in Spain, Gaul and Dalmatia. (2) I compelled the Parthians to return the standards and spoils of three Roman armies, and, as suppliants, to seek the friendship of the Roman people. I placed those standards in the inner shrine, which is in the temple of Mars the Avenger.
30.1: I subjected the nations of the Pannonians to the imperium of the Roman people, nations to whom, before I was princeps, an army of the Roman people had never come, nations that had been defeated by Tiberius Nero, who was then my step-son and Legatus, and I expanded the borders of Illyricum to the bank of the river Danube. (2) Moreover, because the army of the Dacians that had crossed the river was defeated and routed under my aus picies, and afterwards, my army was led across the Danube and compelled the nations of the Dacians to obey the orders of the Roman people.
31.1: Embassies often came to me from the kings of the Indians, which had not been seen prior to that time before any other leader of the Romans. (2) The Bastarnae, Scythians and the kings of the Sarmatians wh o are on either side of the river Don, the king of the Albani, the king of the Iberians and the king of the Medes sought our friendship through ambassadors.
32.1: The following kings fled to me as suppliants: Tiridates and, afterwards, Phrates, son of king Phrates, kings of the Parthians, Artavasdes, king of t he Medes, Artaxares, king of the Adiabeni, Dumnobellanus and Trincommius, kings of the Britons, Maelo king of the Sugumbrians, and [...rus] king of the Suebi. (2) Phrates, son of Orodes, king of the Parthians, sent all of his sons and grandsons to me in Italy, not because he had been defeated in war, but seeking our friendship through the pledge of his own offspring. (3) Many other nations have experienced the fides of the Roman people while I have been princeps, with whom there had previously been no exchange of embassies or friendship.
33.1: The nations of the Parthians and Medes received the kings whom they sought by sending embassies of the leading men of their nations to me. The Parthians received Vonones, son of king Phrates, grandson of king Orodes. The Me des received Ariobarzanes, son of king Artavasdes, grandson of king Ariobarzanes.
34.1: In my sixth and seventh consulships, after I had extinguished the civil wars, when I held power over everything through the consensus of all men, I transferred the Republic from my power to the control of the Roman senate and people. (2) Because of this service of mine, I was named Augustus by a decree of the senate and the door posts of my house were decorated with laurel, and a corona civica was publicly placed above my door, and a golden shield was placed in the curia Julia, which, the inscription on that shield testifies, the Roman senate and people gave to me because of my cou rage, clemency, justice and piety. (3) After that time, although I exceeded all men in authority, I held no greater power than those who were my colleagues in my several offices.
35.1: When I was holding my thirteenth consulship, the senate, the equestrian order and the whole Roman people named me father of the country, and decreed that this should be inscribed on the vestibule of my house and in the curia Julia and in the forum of Augustus under the statue of myself in a four horse chariot that was erected in my honor by decree of the senate. (2) I wrote this when I was 76 years old.
Appendices
Appendix 1
The total sum of money that he gave to the treasury or to the plebs or to soldiers who had completed their terms of service: 2,400,000,000 HS
Appendix 2
new buildings that he built: the temples of Mars, Jupiter Thunderer and Jupiter Feretrius, Apollo, the Divine Julius, Quirinus, Minerva, Juno the Queen, Jupiter the Liberator, of the Lares, of the Divine Penates, of Youth, of the Great Mother, the Luperca l, the pulvinar in the circus, the curia with the Chalcidium, the forum of Augustus, the basilica Julia, the theater of Marcellus, the porticus Octavia, the grove of the Caesars across the Tiber.
Appendix 3
He rebuilt the temple of Capitoline Jupiter, 82 temples, the theater of Pompey, the streams of the aqueducts, the via Flaminia.
Appendix 4
The money that he spent on theatrical spectacles, gladiatorial munera, athletic events, wild beast hunts, the sea battle, monetary gifts to colonies, municipalities, or towns that had been destroyed by earthquakes or fires, or distributed individually to friends and senators, who census requirements he made up, is beyond reckoning.