ity than in the metres which
were borrowed from the Greeks.]

[Footnote 75: The name signifies a mixture or medley. Hence a _lex per
saturam lata_ is a law which contained several distinct regulations at
once.]

[Footnote 76: _Georg._, iii., 41.]

[Footnote 77: Comp. _Georg._, iv., 560, and ii., 171.]

[Illustration: Aureus of Augustus Caesar.]

CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE REIGN OF AUGUSTUS CAESAR. B.C. 31-A.D. 14.

Augustus, being now the emperor of Rome, sought to win the affections of
his people. He lived with republican simplicity in a plain house on the
Palatine Hill, and educated his family with great strictness and
frugality. His public conduct was designed to conceal his unbounded
power. He rejected all unworthy members from the Senate, and limited the
number of the Senators to six hundred. The Comitia of the Centuries was
still allowed to pass laws and elect magistrates, but gradually these
powers were taken away, until, in the reign of Tiberius, they are
mentioned no more. The emperor's chief counselors in public affairs were
his four friends, M. Vipsanius Agrippa, C. Cilnius Maecenas, M. Valerius
Messala, and Asinius Pollio, all persons of excellent talents, and
devoted to their master. Agrippa aided him greatly in embellishing the
city of Rome with new buildings, and the Pantheon, which was built in
the Campus Martins, still bears the inscription, _M. Vipsanius Agrippa,
consul tertium_. Augustus was accustomed to say that he found Rome a
city of brick, and left it a city of marble.

To secure the peace of the capital, and to extirpate the robbers who
filled its streets, Augustus divided Rome into fourteen regions, and
each region into several smaller divisions called _Vici_: a magistrate
was placed over each _Vicus_, and all these officers were under the
command of the city prefect. A police force, _Vigiles_, seven hundred in
number, was also provided, who succeeded in restoring the public peace.
Italy, in a similar manner, was divided into regions, and local
magistrates were appointed, who made life and property every where
secure.

We must notice briefly the extent and condition of that vast empire,
over which Augustus ruled--too vast, in fact, to be subjected to the
control of a single intellect. Italy, the peculiar province of the
emperor, had lost a large part of its free population, whose place was
supplied by slaves; military colonies were numerous, a kind of
settlement which never tended