vate person; and of the many and great honours offered him, he
accepted but few, and such as were very moderate. His birth-day, which
happened to fall at the time of the Plebeian Circensian games, he with
difficulty suffered to be honoured with the addition of only a single
chariot, drawn by two horses. He forbad temples, flamens, or priests to
be appointed for him, as likewise the erection of any statues or effigies
for him, without his permission; and this he granted only on condition
that they should not be placed amongst the images of the gods, but only
amongst the ornaments of houses. He also interposed to prevent the
senate from swearing to maintain his acts; and the month of September
from being called Tiberius, and October being named after Livia. The
praenomen likewise of EMPEROR, with the cognomen of FATHER OF HIS
COUNTRY, and a civic crown in the vestibule of his house, he would not
accept. He never used the name of AUGUSTUS, although he inherited it, in
any of his letters, excepting those addressed to kings and princes. Nor
had he more than three consulships; one for a few days, another for three
months, and a third, during his absence from the city, until the ides
[fifteenth] of May.

XXVII. He had such an aversion to flattery, that he would never suffer
any senator to approach his litter, as he passed the streets in it,
either to pay him a civility, or upon business. (211) And when a man of
consular rank, in begging his pardon for some offence he had given him,
attempted to fall at his feet, he started from him in such haste, that he
stumbled and fell. If any compliment was paid him, either in
conversation or a set speech, he would not scruple to interrupt and
reprimand the party, and alter what he had said. Being once called
"lord," [330] by some person, he desired that he might no more be
affronted in that manner. When another, to excite veneration, called his
occupations "sacred," and a third had expressed himself thus: "By your
authority I have waited upon the senate," he obliged them to change their
phrases; in one of them adopting persuasion, instead of "authority," and
in the other, laborious, instead of "sacred."

XXVIII. He remained unmoved at all the aspersions, scandalous reports,
and lampoons, which were spread against him or his relations; declaring,
"In a free state, both the tongue and the mind ought to be free." Upon
the senate's desiring that some notice might be taken of thos