outed that
they would have one master, naming Claudius, he suffered the soldiers
assembled under arms to swear allegiance to him, promising them fifteen
thousand sesterces a man; he being the first of the Caesars who purchased
the submission of the soldiers with money. [478]

XI. Having thus established himself in power, his first object was to
abolish all remembrance of the two preceding days, in which a revolution
in the state had been canvassed. Accordingly, he passed an act of
perpetual oblivion and pardon for every thing said or done during that
time; and this he faithfully observed, with the exception only of putting
to death a few tribunes and centurions concerned in the conspiracy
against Caius, both as an example, and because he understood that they
had also planned his own death. He now turned (303) his thoughts towards
paying respect to the memory of his relations. His most solemn and usual
oath was, "By Augustus." He prevailed upon the senate to decree divine
honours to his grandmother Livia, with a chariot in the Circensian
procession drawn by elephants, as had been appointed for Augustus [479];
and public offerings to the shades of his parents. Besides which, he
instituted Circensian games for his father, to be celebrated every year,
upon his birth-day, and, for his mother, a chariot to be drawn through
the circus; with the title of Augusta, which had been refused by his
grandmother [480]. To the memory of his brother [481], to which, upon
all occasions, he showed a great regard, he gave a Greek comedy, to be
exhibited in the public diversions at Naples [482], and awarded the crown
for it, according to the sentence of the judges in that solemnity. Nor
did he omit to make honourable and grateful mention of Mark Antony;
declaring by a proclamation, "That he the more earnestly insisted upon
the observation of his father Drusus's birth-day, because it was likewise
that of his grandfather Antony." He completed the marble arch near
Pompey's theatre, which had formerly been decreed by the senate in honour
of Tiberius, but which had been neglected [483]. And though he cancelled
all the acts of Caius, yet he forbad the day of his assassination,
notwithstanding it was that of his own accession to the empire, to be
reckoned amongst the festivals.

XII. But with regard to his own aggrandisement, he was sparing and
modest, declining the title of emperor, and refusing all excessive
honours. He celebrated th