scattering flowers upon the body [129]. Being asked if he wished to see
the tombs of the Ptolemies also; he replied, "I wish to see a king, not
dead men." [130] He reduced Egypt into the form of a province and to
render it more fertile, and more capable of supplying Rome with corn, he
employed his army to scour the canals, into which the Nile, upon its
rise, discharges itself; but which during a long series of years had
become nearly choked up with mud. To perpetuate the glory of his victory
at Actium, he built the city of Nicopolis on that part of the coast, and
established games to be celebrated there every five years; enlarging
likewise an old temple of Apollo, he ornamented with naval trophies [131]
the spot on which he had pitched his camp, and consecrated it to Neptune
and Mars.

(83) XIX. He afterwards [132] quashed several tumults and insurrections,
as well as several conspiracies against his life, which were discovered,
by the confession of accomplices, before they were ripe for execution;
and others subsequently. Such were those of the younger Lepidus, of
Varro Muraena, and Fannius Caepio; then that of Marcus Egnatius,
afterwards that of Plautius Rufus, and of Lucius Paulus, his
grand-daughter's husband; and besides these, another of Lucius Audasius,
an old feeble man, who was under prosecution for forgery; as also of
Asinius Epicadus, a Parthinian mongrel [133], and at last that of
Telephus, a lady's prompter [134]; for he was in danger of his life from
the plots and conspiracies of some of the lowest of the people against
him. Audasius and Epicadus had formed the design of carrying off to the
armies his daughter Julia, and his grandson Agrippa, from the islands in
which they were confined. Telephus, wildly dreaming that the government
was destined to him by the fates, proposed to fall both upon Octavius and
the senate. Nay, once, a soldier's servant belonging to the army in
Illyricum, having passed the porters unobserved, was found in the
night-time standing before his chamber-door, armed with a hunting-dagger.
Whether the person was really disordered in the head, or only
counterfeited madness, is uncertain; for no confession was obtained from
him by torture.

XX. He conducted in person only two foreign wars; the Dalmatian, whilst
he was yet but a youth; and, after Antony's final defeat, the Cantabrian.
He was wounded in the former of these wars; in one battle he received a
contusion in the right